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Crook,  Isaac,  1833-1916 
John  Knox:  the  reformer 


mdtn  of  tht  Kingticnt 


John  Knox:  The  Reformer 


Isaac    Crook,  LL.  D. 

Author  of  "  Jonathan  Edwards"  and 
"  The  Earnest  Expectation." 


CINCINNATI:  JENNINGS   AND    GRAHAM 
NEW  YORK,     EATON     AND     MAINS 


COPYRIGHTED,    I906,    BY 
JENNINGS    AND    GRAHAM 


^citttaitjttt 


S^jt  JJk«  ixtjf e  jr J  mg  gxttrflj^ 
Dearer  as  the  years  go  by,  whose  skillful  care 

HAS   preserved   MY   HEALTH,    WHOSE   INTELLIGENT 
HELP   IN   RESEARCH,    AND  WHOSE  FINE    DIS- 
CRIMINATION,    HAS    GREATLY    AS- 
SISTED   IN    THIS    BOOK. 


Sentiments  from  Knox 


"  Above  all    things,  preserve  the  kirk  from  the  uni- 
versities." 

"  If  princes  exceed  their  bounds,  no  doubt  they  may  be 
resisted  even  by  power." 

"  God  subjects  people  under  princes,  and  causes  obe- 
dience to  be  given  under  them." 


"  God  forbid  that  I  ever  take  upon  me  to  set  subjects  at 
liberty  to  do  whatever  pleases  them." 


"  I  have  learned  plainly  and  boldly  to  call  wickedness 
by  its  own  name — a  fig  a  fig,  and  a  spade  a  spade." 


"  Man  always  thinks  he  can  derive  a  more  perfect  hon- 
oring of  God  than  that  which  He  Himself  hath  commanded." 


"  There  has  been  and  shall  be,  even  to  the  coming  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  a  Church  which  is  holy  and  universal ;  to  wit, 
The  Communion  of  Saints." 


"  What  I  have  been  to  my  country,  albeit  this  unthank- 
fnl  age  will  not  know,  yet  the  ages  to  come  will  be  com- 
pelled to  bear  witness  to  the  truth." 


"  I  see  the  steeple  of  that  place  where  God  first  in  public 
opened  my  mouth  to  His  glory,  and  I  am  fully  persuaded 
that  I  shall  not  depart  this  life  till  that  my  tongue  shall 
glorify  His  name  in  the  same  place." 


CONTENTS 

part  I 

THE  MAN  AND  HIS  COUNTRY 

Chapter  Page 

I.  A  Man-child  was  Born,    -         -         -         -     15 
n.  Caledonia, 23 

part  n 

HIS     ERA 

I.  Reformer,  ------     39 

II.  The  Two-edged  Sword,          -         -         -  52 

III.  Scholarship,      - 64 

part  m 

MONUMENTS 

I.  His  Monuments, 91 

II.  Bonnie  Scotland,  -         -         -         -        109 

part  IV 

SHAMROCK  AND  THISTLE 

I.  Shamrock  and  Thistle,      -         -         -         -  125 

II.  Our  Hero, 139 

III.  Elements  of  Character,  -    -    -    -  145 


INTRODUCTORY 

"Biographies  are  dull."  So  is  much  of  history, 
cyclopedia,  and  lexicon.  The  difference  is  in  the 
method. 

This  book  was  started  by  two  sentiments, — one 
spoken  at  the  grave  of  Knox  by  Earl  Morton;  the 
other  attributed  to  Knox,  which  I  can  not  verify. 
Both  will  appear  toward  the  end  of  this  volume. 

The  task  of  Knox  was  the  most  difficult  of  the 
famous  Reformers,  and  completest  done.  Icono- 
clast, of  necessity ;  but  chiefly  Reformer. 

Knox  is  the  most  conspicuous  character  in  Scot- 
tish history.    The  facts  will  appear  in  this  book. 

What  is  he  to  us  in  America?  His  people  and 
principles,  like  live  wires,  penetrate  life  all  about  us. 

Most  histories  and  biographies  "lippen"  so  hard 
to  favorite  men,  nations,  and  forms  of  faith,  as  to 
depreciate  those  contrasted.  This  is  a  sure  way  to 
be  unreliable,  do  injustice,  and  present  false  views, 
not  only  of  those  criticised,  but  also  of  the  subject 

9 


lo  Introductory. 

of  eulogy.  Much  of  the  writings  concerning  Knox 
and  his  times  is  thus  vitiated.  Difficult  as  is  this 
task,  we  hope  to  have  succeeded  fairly  well, 

Protestants  are  not  all  good ;  neither  are  Roman 
Catholics  all  bad. 

It  were  bigotry  to  despise  men  like  John  Henry 
Newman,  leading  the  world  in  singing  "Lead, 
Kindly  Light,"  or  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  author  of 
such  songs  as  "Jesus,  the  very  thought  of  Thee ;" 
or  Bernard  of  Cluny,  singing  "Jerusalem  the 
Golden;"  or  saints  like  Fenelon,  with  his  intense 
love  of  moral  duty ;  Thomas  Aquinas,  the  "Angelic 
Doctor;"  or  Thomas  a  Kempis,  with  his  "Imitation 
of  Christ."  It  has  remained  to  our  day  for  Protes- 
tant lecturers  to  exalt  the  moral  hero  Savonarola. 
We  pity,  while  admiring,  the  late  Archbishop  Elder, 
appealing  to  Mary  in  his  dying  breath. 

There  is  an  archbishop  in  the  Northwest,  and  a 
cardinal  in  the  East,  a  brilliant  patriotic  pair,  who, 
though  hampered,  stand  for  righteousness. 

Books  are  usually  written  for  the  author's  fel- 
low-countrymen. This  is  scon  in  the  many  assump- 
tions and  implications  leaving  to  the  reader  who 
lives  in  other  lands  the  task  of  interpretation.  This 
is  troublesome  if  he  has  a  large  library;  and  if  not, 
he  is  helpless. 


Introductory.  i  i 

Foreign  writers  leave  untranslated  their  phrases, 
currency,  revolutions,  order  of  sovereigns,  greatly 
to  the  dissatisfaction  of  readers  of  a  different  na- 
tionality. This  may  account  for  some  of  the  sim- 
plifications attempted  in  this  book. 

We  hope  to  be  fair  when  we  enter  the  storm- 
center  of  the  Scotch  Reformation  as  it  swirled 
round  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.  Many  historians 
have  acted  simply  as  her  apologists,  discounting, 
and  even  denouncing,  all  who  assisted  in  rescuing 
Scotland  from  the  ruin  certain  to  have  come  had 
she  prevailed.  She  was  not  to  blame  for  her  hot 
blood,  great  cunning,  intense  selfishness,  nor  for 
having  been  thrust  before  the  world  as  a  child  of 
six,  and  placed  under  the  training  of  Catherine  de' 
Medici.  Neither  can  her  faults  be  condoned  with- 
out sympathy  with  sin.  She  broke  away,  and  in 
two  years  dashed  through  a  sluice  of  moral  corrup- 
tion from  Darnley  to  Bothwell,  and  into  a  twenty 
years'  imprisonment,  ended  by  being  beheaded. 

In  the  preparation  of  this  book  I  have  sought 
information  in  history,  biography,  theology,  and 
fiction,  ancient  and  modern,  written  by  men  of  dif- 
ferent nationalities,  friendly  and  unfriendly  toward 
Knox,  as  well  as  what  the  Reformer  himself  wrote. 

I  have  corresponded  with  a  wide  circle  of  the 


12  Introductory. 

best  informed  of  Scotch  and  American  readers  and 
writers;  have  looked  about  among  the  Scotch  and 
Scotch-Irish  Americans,  drawing  on  their  tradi- 
tions, very  rich  and  surprising;  have  read  the  pro- 
ceedings of  Scotch-Irish  Congresses,  being  privi- 
leged to  attend  one  held  in  Louisville,  Kentucky. 
While  acknowledging  my  indebtedness  to  their  en- 
lightening and  eloquent  addresses,  I  have,  in  a  few 
instances,  returned  the  "Scotch  verdict"  on  some 
of  their  claims  to  men  and  measures.  I  hope,  how- 
ever, to  have  drawn  the  Reformer  out  of  a  cloudy 
past  into  clear  modern  vision. 


PART  I 

THE  MAN  AND  HIS  COUNTRY 


CHAPTER  I. 
"A  MAN-CHILD  WAS  BORN." 

Four  hundred  and  one  years  ago,  February  28th, 
seventeen  miles  northeast  of  Edinburgh,  in  a  plain 
Scotch  home  at  Haddington,  a  child  was  born  and 
they  named  him  John;  a  fashionable  name  at  that 
time,  as  well  as  through  all  the  Christian  centuries. 
When  this  child  became  a  man,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  tasks  of  his  life  was  assigned  him,  he  was 
placed  on  a  committee  of  six,  every  man  named 
John,  but  his  was  the  dominant  mind.  Out  of  that 
committee,  in  1560,  came  the  Scottish  nation,  with 
its  Kirk,  its  Confession,  and  civil  liberty.  Nor  was 
its  Confession  Johannean,  but  rather  Pauline. 

The  father  of  John  Knox  was  of  the  upper-mid- 
dle class,  being  a  somewhat  thrifty  tenant  of  the 
Earl  of  Bothwell.  As  this  name  was  but  a  title, 
not  indicating  blood  relation,  it  saves  us  from  sup- 
posing that  he  was  like  in  character  to  the  talented 

15 


i6  John  Knox:  Tiiu  Reformicr. 

wretch,  James  Hepburn,  who  figured  later,  in  the 
history  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  as  Earl  Bothwell. 

The  Scotch  pine,  like  its  species  all  about  the 
world,  grows  on  high  places,  often  on  heights  of 
2,700  feet ;  then  it  shoots  skyward  for  one  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  more.  It  will  live  for  four  hundred 
years.  One  would  like  to  find  some  tree  in  the  Pent- 
land  hills  yet  living  climbed  or  prayed  under  by 
the  boy  Knox. 

The  tall  tree  catches  the  eye,  but  mere  conspicu- 
ousness  and  merit  are  not  identical.  Some,  like 
Guitcau  and  Judas  Iscariot,  are  conspicuous  be- 
cause bad ;  others  like  Beau  Nash  and  Darnley,  were 
prominent,  but  fools.  Men  like  our  hero  are  promi- 
nent in  spite  of  themselves. 

Hamilton,  the  martyr;  Sir  William  Hamilton, 
the  philosopher ;  Wishart,  the  tutor  of  Knox, 
Buchanan,  and  Andrew  Melville,  who  carried  on 
the  reform  against  prelacy,  were  jewels  as  fine  or 
even  finer  than  Knox,  but  were  not  so  conspicuous. 

The  inconspicuous  man  may  be  so  from  lack  of 
gifts,  graces,  or  usefulness;  or,  possessing  all  these 
even  more  than  many  who  are  conspicuous,  may 
belong  to  the  least  of  the  kingdom  who  arc  its  great- 
est. The  world  needs  more  attention  to  God's 
jewels  after  the  ideals  of    George  Macdonald  in 


Ths  Man  and  His  Country.  17 

"Annals  of  a  Quiet  Neighborhood,"  or  Legh  Rich- 
mond with  his  "Dairyman's  Daughter."  The  rar- 
est fossils  and  the  brightest  diamonds  are  not  in  the 
coarse  granite  peaks  on  the  mountain-top.  The 
two  mites  of  the  widow  outshine  the  ostentatious 
gilt  of  the  millionaire.  Not  so  much  for  himself, 
but  for  what  he  stood,  we  try  to  bring  Knox  out  of 
the  shadows  of  four  hundred  years.  As  we  shall 
see,  he  became  conspicuous  against  his  choice. 

"The:  Outward  Man." 

There  are  half  a  dozen  uncertain,  inferior  pic- 
tures of  him,  sufficiently  contradictory  to  prove 
them  unreliable.  But  these  are  helped  out  in  a 
written  description  by  Sir  Peter  Young,  tutor  of 
James  VI,  and  sent  to  Theodore  Beza  in  1579.  By 
aid  of  this  description,  the  pictures,  and  what  we 
know  of  Scottish  habits  at  that  date,  there  comes 
before  the  mind  the  vision  of  a  man  with  a  Scotch 
bonnet,  covering  a  head  of  black  hair ;  with  heavy, 
jutting  eyebrows ;  deepset,  large  eyes,  bluish-gray, 
bright  and  penetrating,  with  a  twinkle  of  humor;  a 
nose  prominent,  long,  somewhat  aquiline ;  a  mouth 
of  generous  size,  and  a  beard  over  a  foot  long.  Full 
beards  were  then  fashionable.  He  never  ate  with 
a  fork  so  as  to  be  embarrassed  with  that  beard,  for 

2 


i8  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

forks  were  not  in  use.  His  shoulders  were  broad 
and  his  frame  was  well  knit  and  vigorous  before 
his  terrible  sufferings  as  a  slave  in  French  galleys, 
with  the  added  drain  of  his  strenuous  life.  But  he 
was  under  size,  contrary  to  what  we  might  imagine 
from  the  Scotch  type,  which  no  doubt  misled  the 
author  of  the  "Queen's  Quare,"  to  describe  him 
as  a  man  of  large  and  powerful  frame.  In  stature 
he  reminds  us  of  other  great  heroes  of  small  frame. 
Such  was  Ignatius  Loyola,  whose  zeal  sent  him 
about  the  world  to  propagate  virulent,  violent,  cruel 
fanaticism.  John  Calvin,  the  leader  of  the  most 
persistent  doctrinal  reform  of  any  age,  was  also 
small  in  stature.  John  Wesley,  leader  of  the  great- 
est revival  up  to  his  time,  was  less  than  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-five  pounds  weight. 

These  men  had  much  in  common, — self- forgetful 
zeal,  fearless  aggressiveness,  and  unconquerable 
efficiency.  Loyola,  as  a  young  soldier  steeped  in 
vice,  being  wounded  at  Pampcluna  by  a  cannon 
ball,  was  converted  to  Romanism  antl  undertook  to 
check  the  Reformation.  Calvin  turned  away  from 
law  and  literature  to  Protestant  Cliristianity. 
Knox,  bred  to  the  Catholic  priesthood,  was  con- 
verted, and  "cast  anchor"  in  Christ's  prayer  re- 
corded in  John's  seventeenth  chapter. 


The;  Man  and  His  Country.  19 

The  face  of  Knox  appeals  to  one,  both  on  ac- 
count of  what  it  is  and  because  of  its  reflection  of 
his  lack-luster  life,  shadowed,  it  may  be,  by  some- 
thing from  his  ancestors,  with  a  thousand  years  of 
feudal  strife.  It  strongly  hints  a  Swiss  or  French 
rather  than  a  Scotch  face. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  we  should  be  drawn 
closely  to  the  wearer  of  it,  reflecting  so  somber  a 
spirit.  Luther  might  have  repelled  by  a  brusque 
self-assertiveness  running  over  into  jollity,  while 
Knox  would  form  but  very  few  friendships  like 
that  of  Jonathan  and  David,  or  that  with  his  own 
beloved  leader,  George  Wishart,  whom  he  desired 
to  follow  to  martyrdom  at  the  stake.  Though  small 
of  stature,  it  was  forgotten  as  he  rose  in  command- 
ing moral  grandeur  before  crowds,  over  whom  his 
eloquence  swept  like  the  floods  from  beneath  the 
snows  of  his  native  land. 

Biography. 

This  is  the  soul  of  history.  Let  its  outline  be 
brief.  Knox  spent  his  first  seventeen  years  at  home 
and  at  school  in  Haddington ;  the  next  eight  years 
in  Glasgow  University.  He  spent  sixteen  years  ob- 
scurely as  tutor  in  the  families  of  Douglas  and 
Cockburn,  also  partly  employed  in  the  work  of  a 


20  John  Knox  :  Tiiii  Reformer. 

priest.  At  the  age  of  forty  he  became  a  follower 
of  George  Wishart,  who  was  burnt  by  the  order  of 
Cardinal  Beaton.  At  forty-one  he  was  called  to 
preach  the  Reform  doctrines.  For  two  years  nearly 
he  was  a  galley  slave  on  the  "Notre  Dame" — trav- 
esty on  the  name ! — navigating  the  French  rivers 
Seine  and  Loire.  He  was  very  silent  about  that  ex- 
perience, like  the  victims  of  Andersonville  prison 
in  our  Civil  War.  It  was  too  horrible  to  recall. 
For  four  years  after  his  liberation  he  preached  in 
England.  Five  years  he»  spent,  partly  in  Frank- 
f ort-on-the-Main ;  then  three  years  in  Geneva  as 
pastor  of  a  congregation.  The  last  thirteen  years 
of  his  life  he  was  in  Scotland,  finishing  the  com- 
pletest  Reformation  of  any  in  Europe. 

He  died  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven.  Calvin  died 
at  the  age  of  fifty-five ;  Luther  at  the  age  of  sixty- 
three  ;  Loyola  at  the  age  of  sixty-six ;  but  it  would 
have  been  disgraceful  to  die  at  any  such  age  in 
"Drumtochty."  He  was  the  father  of  two  sons  in 
union  with  Mary  Bowes,  Nathaniel  and  Eliezar. 
Both  were  well  cared  for  and  liberally  educated,  but 
died  early,  and  loft  no  children.  One  became  a 
clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England.  There  wore 
three  daughters  born  of  the  second  marriage;  they 
became  remarkable  women.     Through  them  have 


The  Man  and  His  Country.  21 

descended  many  of  Knox's  living  posterity,  some 
of  whom  are  found  in  America. 

"The  Whimpering  Schooeboy/' 

Knox's  father  was  sufficiently  thrifty  and  wise 
to  afford  the  lad  ample  education ;  first  at  Hadding- 
ton, the  shire  town  of  the  county  in  which  he  was 
born.  Some  biographies  say  he  went  thence  to  the 
University  of  St.  Andrews ;  but  most  agree  in  send- 
ing him  to  Glasgow,  where  he  took  his  Bachelor's 
degree.  One  says  he  took  his  Master's  degree  at 
St.  Andrews,  where  for  a  time  he  served  as  tutor. 
The  disagreement  suggests, — 

"  Seven  cities  now  contend  for  Homer  dead, 
Through  which  the  living  Homer  begged  his  bread." 

In  his  education  he  was  devoted  to  the  Romish 
priesthood,  then  the  Church  in  Scotland.  One  of 
his  teachers  was  John  Major,  a  remarkable  man, 
who  acquainted  young  Knox  with  the  learning  of 
the  Renaissance.  This  learning  was  inimical  to  the 
papacy,  being  a  reversal  to  an  earlier  independence 
of  thought.  It  not  only  awakened  a  love  of  litera- 
ture, but  also  of  logic.  It  involved  the  spirit 
of  democracy.  Knox  was  an  apt  learner,  and  com- 
peted in  ability  as  a  dialectician  with  Major  himself. 


22  John  Knox:  Thr  Reformer. 

Both  little  dreamed  of  the  harvest  to  come  out  of 
this  seed-sowing. 

After  his  ordination  to  the  priesthood,  which 
had  a  secular  side,  conferring  the  privileges  of  civil 
notary,  he  entered  upon  his  work  as  tutor.  The 
families  in  which  he  served  were  Protestant  in  their 
leanings.  The  leaven  was  quietly  at  work,  until 
he  became  a  devoted  follower  of  George  Wishart, 
who,  on  his  way  to  the  stake,  turned  Knox  back  to 
his  "bairns" — his  pupils.  It  has  been  a  question 
whether  Knox  was  a  great  scholar ;  whether  he  ^^ 
could  rank  with  Luther,  Calvin,  Melanchthon,  or 
Zwingli.  We  shall  return  to  this  question  further 
en. 


CHAPTER  II. 

"C  A  L  E  D  O  N  I  A." 

To  UNDERSTAND  a  man  we  must  consider  his  na- 
tive country.  Scotland  is  small.  "From  Maiden 
Kirk  to  John  o' Groat's,"  south  to  north,  it  is  less  than 
three  hundred  miles ;  from  east  to  west,  in  places 
thirty,  and  in  others  a  hundred  and  forty ;  from 
Aberdeen  east  on  the  German  Ocean  to  the  Isle  of 
Skye  on  the  west,  one  hundred  and  fifty.  Its  thirty 
thousand  square  miles  could  lie  down  on  Ohio  with 
eleven  thousand  square  miles  as  a  spare  margin.  So 
are  other  great  countries  small.  Greece  is  five  thou- 
sand square  miles  less  than  Scotland,  and  yet  has 
been  felt  in  the  history  of  the  world.  The  Nether- 
lands conquered  by  the  tireless  Dutch,  from  swamp 
and  sea,  the  scene  for  the  battle  of  Puritanism  for 
eighty  years,  is  but  thirteen  thousand  square  miles ; 
while  Palestine,  the  pivot  of  the  world's  history,  is 

23 


24  John  Knox:  The;  Reformer. 

not  half  as  large  as  Scotland,  being  only  ten  thou- 
sand square  miles.  Humanly  speaking,  it  produced 
the  Son  of  man. 

From  an  airship  a  sail  across  Scotland  \vould 
reveal  a  wonderful  land  with  a  marvelous  history. 
It  is  surrounded  w'ith  eight  hundred  islands  and  a 
multitude  of  deep  bays,  many  firths,  entering  the 
German  Ocean  on  the  east  and  the  Atlantic  Ocean 
on  the  west.  These  rivers  spring  from  wild  gorges 
in  the  Grampians,  dashing  through  into  lakelets 
and  great  lochs,  drawing  to  their  shores  wondering 
visitors  from  all  lands;  around  which  lakes  are 
trimmings  of  evergreens,  and  over  which  hangs  a 
charm  of  history,  poetry,  and  romance.  The  air- 
voyager  would  behold  the  Grampian  Hills,  in 
two  chains  winding  mainly  from  the  east, 
northward  and  westward,  dividing  the  whole 
country  into  two  glorious  valleys,  and  them- 
selves terminating  in  such  great  captain?  as 
Ben  Lomond  and  Ben  Nevis.  Below  him 
would  be  much  of  the  time  a  murky  sky,  discharg- 
ing mist  and  rain,  and  heavy  snows  in  winter. 
Above  him  would  be  the  marvelous  blue  heavens,  so 
exhilarating  to  Scotland  when  the  clouds  roll  away. 
And  still  below  the  mists  lie  long  stretches  of  plains, 
reaching  from  the  rivers'  brink  by  way  of  peat  bogs. 


The  Man  and  His  Country.  25 

upward  through  barren-looking  heather-plains, 
where  herds  of  Highland  cattle  and  flocks  of  black- 
faced  sheep  graze.  The  rocks  are  numerous  in 
kind  and  great  in  quantity,  including  paleozoic 
schist,  quartz,  gneiss,  granite,  volcanic  rock,  coal, 
iron,  and  gold,  formerly  in  paying  quantities.  The 
voyager  would  catch  glimpses  of  many  old  historic 
castles,  monuments  of  centuries  of  strife,  rapine, 
luxury,  and  growth. 

Though  so  far  north,  lying  between  near  54" 
and  58°,  the  climate  is  more  equal  than  many  simi- 
lar latitudes.  The  thermometer  is  rarely  down  to 
zero  and  seldom  up  to  80°,  with  a  mean  of  forty- 
seven  degrees. 

It  is  such  a  country  as  to  develop  a  people  like 
the  Scotch,  and  bring  out  the  Wallace,  the  Bruce, 
and  the  grander  hero,  John  Knox. 

"  The  thistle's  purple  bonnet, 
And  the  bonnie  heather-bell," 

Before  we  study  the  task  of  John  Knox,  let  us 
look  further  at  the  man. 

Had  this  serious-faced  hero  any  sense  of  humor  ? 
Unfortunate  the  man  with  heroic  work  on  hands 
destitute  of  it.  It  may  be  excessive  and  imperti- 
nent and  thus  weaken  a  man's  power.    But  Knox 


26  John  Knox:  Tiir  Reformer. 

would  not  have  been  an  all-around  Scotchman  with 
no  humorous  side.  In  this  the  Scotch  people  differ 
somewhat  from  other  nations.  The  Irish  run 
strongly  to  a  sparkling  wit,  which  snaps  and 
startles,  but  seldom  hurts.  The  German  is  a  little 
slow-footed  in  his  humor,  and  expends  it  largely 
within  domestic  circles.  The  American,  though  in 
some  sense  a  combination  of  all,  runs  to  burlesque 
through  a  race  of  men  extending  from  Sam  Slick, 
the  clock  peddler,  to  "Innocents  Abroad,"  while 
there  are  those  living  whose  sweet,  pure,  brilliant 
books  promise  that  the  race  of  American  humorists 
will  not  soon  die  out.  With  the  Scotch  it  resembles 
very  much  their  national  emblem,  the  thistle. — sly 
and  keen  without,  but  sweet  and  beautiful  within. 

When  Sir  Walter  Scott  grimly  tells  us  that  Old 
Mortality,  during  his  eighty-six  years,  grew  merry 
twice  in  his  life,  one  would  like  to  have  caught  the 
gleam  in  the  eye  of  Sir  Walter.  "Scotch-Irish 
John"  was  asked,  by  Charles  the  Bald,  the  differ- 
ence between  a  Scot  and  a  sot.  "Nothing,  please 
your  Majesty,  except  the  table."  Crockett,  in  his 
description  of  the  session  of  the  Marrow  Kirk 
Synod,  "the  only  true  witnessing  and  faithful  Kirk 
of  Scotland,"  pictures  the  assembly  as  consisting  of 


The:  Man  and  His  Country.  27 

moderator,  clerk,  and  officer.  Charges  are  to  be 
preferred  against  Ralph  Peden ;  the  session  is  to  be 
private ;  the  officer  is  commanded  to  remove  all  vis- 
itors, whereupon  said  officer  removes  himself  very 
reluctantly  from  the  hall.  The  clerk  is  ordered  to 
call  upon  himself  to  present  the  complaints  against 
Ralph  Peden.  It  is  solemnly  done.  He  sits  down, 
and  then  arises  as  complainant  to  read  the  charges. 
For  some  lack  of  severity,  he  is  reprimanded,  and 
finally  expelled  from  the  assembly  by  the  moderator. 
The  clerk  in  turn  assumes  to  be  the  assembly  itself, 
and  unanimously  votes  to  expel  the  moderator,  and 
the  eavesdropping  officer  goes  wailing  down  the 
street,  proclaiming  that  the  Marrow  Kirk  of  Scot- 
land is  no  more.  As  a  specimen  of  humor  in  prac- 
tice, what  is  better  than  that  of  Professor  Blackie 
with  his  class?  On  the  bulletin  board  of  the  uni- 
versity was  written  the  statement,  "Professor 
Blackie  will  meet  his  classes  to-day."  Some  stu- 
dent erased  the  initial  "c."  '  The  professor,  about 
to  pass  into  the  lecture-room,  observed  that  he  was 
to  lecture  to  lasses.  He  promptly  amended  the  mat- 
ter by  erasing  the  letter  "1,"  and  the  students  fol- 
lowed in  that  character.  The  Scotch-Irish  of  this 
country  claim  Abraham  Lincoln  as  of  their  blood. 


28  John  Knox:  Tiik  Reformer. 

One  should  like  to  believe  it,  for  that  humor  of  his 
which  played  among  the  clouds  of  that  saddest, 
greatest  conPict  of  time  is  of  the  same  strain  with 
Scottish  humor. 

Had  John  Knox  any  of  this?  He  needed  it  to 
illuminate  the  storm-clouds  that  hung  over  his 
career.  He  did  not  run  much  to  qualities  aside  from, 
those  needed  for  his  one  work,  and  he  was,  there- 
fore, no:  rounded  out  to  the  fullest  measure  of  his 
capabilities;  but  we  see  flashes  occasionally  of  this 
very  serviceable  and  very  human  quality. 

When  chained  to  the  oar  of  the  French  galley, 
a  painted  image  of  the  Virgin  Mary  was  presented 
to  him  to  be  kissed.  This  he  declined  to  do,  but 
seizing  it  remarked,  "Lat  aur  Ladie  now  save  her- 
sel' ;  she  is  lycht  enoughe,  lat  her  learn  to  swyme ;" 
and  he  tossed  it  into  the  river.  After  preaching  in 
Perth  against  the  idolatry  of  the  mass,  there  fol- 
lowed a  riot  which  resulted  in  destroying  the  deco- 
rations of  the  cathedral,  and  of  many  other  Roman 
Catholic  buildings.  Knox  blamed  it  on  the  "rascal 
multitude ;"  he  also  remarked  that  they  had  "de- 
stroyed the  rookeries  lest  the  rooks  might  return." 

At  one  of  his  interviews  with  Mary,  Queen  of 
Scots,  she  grew  angry,  and  he  was  obliged  to  wait 
in  the  hall   without,  in  the  presence  of  her  four 


Thk  Man  and  His  Country.  29 

maids.  He  pleasantly  remarked  to  them,  "O,  fair 
ladies,  how  pleasing-  were  this  life  of  yours  if  it 
should  abide,  and  then  in  the  end  that  we  might 
pass  to  heaven  with  all  this  gay  gear ;  but  fie  upon 
that  knave,  Death,  that  will  come  whether  we  will 
or  not ;  and  when  he  has  laid  on  his  arrest,  the  foul 
worms  will  be  busy  with  this  flesh,  be  it  never  so 
fair  and  tender,  and  the  silly  soul,  I  fear,  shall  be 
so  feeble  that  it  can  neither  carry  with  it  gold,  gar- 
nishing, targeting,  pearl,  nor  precious  stones !" 
When  retiring  on  another  occasion  from  Mary's 
presence,  he  overheard  men  in  waiting  say,  "He  is 
not  affrayed."  His  reply  was :  "Why  should  the 
pleasing  face  of  a  gentle  woman  affray  me  ?  I  have 
looked  into  the  face  of  angry  men,  and  yet  have 
not  been  affrayed  above  measure."  This  was  not 
brag,  but  the  welling  up  of  sub-acid  Scotch  humor. 
Dr.  Hume  Brown  says :  "From  the  Meary 
bourds  with  which  he  enlivens  his  narrative,  we 
may  infer  that  his  daily  conversation  was  not  al- 
ways of  justification  and  predestination,  but  that  he 
could  tell  his  story  and  exchange  his  jest  at  any 
time  or  place  where  fitting.  What  distinguished 
him  from  men  like  Calvin  and  Savonarola  is  pre- 
cisely that  sense  of  a  humorous  side  of  things  which 
made  him  at  once  a  great  writer  and  a  great  leader 


30  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

of  men.  Of  the  value  of  this  quahty  in  the  conduct 
of  human  affairs  he  was  himself  perfectly  conscious, 
and  deliberately  employed  it,  both  in  his  writings 
and  in  his  dealings  with  his  fellows." 

"Melancholius  ressours,"  he  said  in  one  of  h's 
debates  with  Lethington,  "wald  haif  sum  myrth  in- 
termixed." Studied  anticlimax,  grim  irony,  humor- 
ous exaggeration,  are  as  distinctly  his  characteris- 
tics as  they  are  those  of  Carlyle,  in  whom  also  these 
are  relieving  qualities  from  narrow  intensity  and  an 
overbearing  temper. 

With  humor  is  usually  found  pity  and  the  power 
of  pathos ;  and  in  Knox  more  than  once  his  harsh 
austerity  softens  into  a  mood,  the  more  impressive 
that  it  comes  so  seldom. 

Take  an  extract  from  Knox's  history  describ- 
ing a  religious  row. 

"If  we  interlace  merriness  with  earnest  matters, 
pardon  us,  good  reader;  for  the  fact  is  so  notable 
that  it  deserveth  long  memory.  The  cardinal  was 
known  proud  ;  and  Dunbar,  Archbishop  of  Glasgow, 
was  known  a  glorious  fool ;  and  yet,  because  he  was 
called  sometimes  the  king's  master,  he  was  chan- 
cellor of  Scotland.  The  cardinal  comes  even  this 
same  year  in  the  end  of  harvest  before,  to  Glas- 
gow ;  upon  what  purpose  we  omit.     Coming  forth 


The  Man  and  His  Country.  31 

(or  going  in,  all  is  one)  at  the  choir  door  of  Glas- 
gow Kirk,  begins  striving  for  state  between  the  two 
cross  bearers,  so  that  from  glooming  they  come  to 
shouldering;  from  shouldering  they  go  to  buffets, 
and  from  dry  blows  to  fists  and  fisticuffs ;  and  then 
for  charity's  sake,  they  cry,  'Disperse  it,  dcdit  pan- 
perihus,'  and  essay  which  of  the  crosses  was  finest 
metal,  which  staff  the  strongest,  and  which  bearer 
could  best  defend  his  master's  pre-eminence ;  and, 
that  there  should  be  no  superiority  on  that  behalf, 
to  the  ground  go  both  crosses.  And  then  began  no 
little  fray,  but  yet  a  merry  game ;  for  rockets  were 
rent,  tippets  were  torn,  crowns  were  knapped,  and 
side-gowns  might  have  been  seen  wantonly  wag 
from  one  wall  to  the  other.  Many  of  them  lacked 
beards,  and  that  was  the  more  pity,  and  therefore 
could  not  buckle  other  by  the  hair  as  bold  men 
would  have  done. 

"But  fie  on  the  jackmen,  that  did  not  their  duty ; 
for,  had  the  one  part  of  them  re-encountered  the 
other,  then  had  all  gone  right!  But  the  sanctuary, 
we  suppose,  saved  the  lives  of  many.  How  merrily 
that  ever  this  be  written,  it  was  bitter  mirth  to  the 
cardinal  and  his  court.  It  was  more  than  irregu- 
larity ;  yea,  it  might  well  have  been  judged  'lesc 
majeste'  to  the  son  of  perdition,  the  pope's  own 


32  John  Knox:  The;  Reformer. 

person ;  and  yet  the  other,  in  his  folly  as  proud  as  a 
peacock,  would  let  the  cardinal  know  that  he  was  a 
bishop,  when  the  other  was  but  Beaton,  before  he 
got  Aberbrothock,  This  annuity  was  judged  mor- 
tal and  without  all  hope  of  reconciliation." 

"  Go  watch  the  foremost  ranks  of  danger's  dark  career. 
Be  sure  the  hand  most  daring  there  has  wiped  away  a  tear." 

Had  this  great  Scotchman  that  tender  nature 
which  would  move  him  "to  lead  about  a  wife,  a  sis- 
ter?" If  so,  he  was  endowed  with  that  rich  ele- 
ment of  Scotch  nature,  tenderness  of  sentiment.  In 
this  the  Scotch  are  somewhat  different  from  other 
nationalities.  The  Italian  is  open  and  excessive  in 
his  expression  of  sentiment  after  the  manner  of  his 
native  sky,  flowers,  and  fruit.  The  Frenchman  is 
impulsive,  exaggeratt:d,  and  impassioned.  In  the 
Scot  sentiment  swells  strong  and  deep  from  be- 
neath a  cool  exterior,  after  the  manner  of  mountain 
streams  from  under  the  snows  and  ice  of  his  native 
land.  There  is  a  purity  and  depth  of  touch  in 
Scotch  song,  scarcely  matched.  It  breaks,  binds, 
and  blesses  the  heart.  I  Tad  Rums  been  as  clean 
and  sober  as  he  was  brilliant  and  tender,  he  might 
have  eclipsed  the  poets  of  the  human  race  with  his 
rare  gifts.     TIad  he  been  as  religious  as  Knox,  he 


The  Man  and  His  Country.  33 

might  have  rivaled  Charles  Wesley  as  a  writer  of 
hymns.  But  in  that  case  it  is  doubtful  whether  his 
anniversary  had  been  celebrated  yearly. 

That  wizard  of  fine  English,  President  Edward 
Thomson,  afterward  bishop,  wrote  in  a  letter  from 
Europe : 

"One  says,  'I  wish  to  take  advice  about  a  serious 
matter  that  weighs  on  my  mind.'  'What  is  it?'  'Get- 
ting married.  Is  it  best?'  'Well,  whom  have  you 
in  view?  Is  she  young,  handsome,  and  virtuous? 
The  sooner  you  get  her,  the  better.  Who  is  she?' 
'O,  nobody  in  particular;  it  is  marrying  in  the  ab- 
stract that  I  am  thinking  about.'  That  is  young 
Germany. 

"  'Zounds !  I  love  her,  and  will  have  her  if  I 
have  to  swim  the  river  for  her!'    Young  America. 

"  'No  use  to  deny  me  or  run  from  me.  Where 
you  go,  I  will  go ;  where  you  stop,  I  will  stop ; 
where  you  live,  I  will  live ;  where  you  die,  I  will  die ; 
and  where  you  are  buried,  there  will  I  be  buried.' 
Young  Ireland. 

"  'She  is  worth  three  thousand  one  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  pounds,  six  shillings,  fourpence  and 
half-penny,  which,  under  the  circumstances,  is  not 
quite  sufficient.'    Young  England." 

For  the  Scotch  let  me  add.  She  is  fairer  than  a 
3 


34  John  Knox:  Tim  RicroRMER. 

daisy,  more  beauteous  than  the  bhiebeU,  purer  tlian 
snow,  brighter  than  Bonnie  Doon,  satisfying  as  the 
morning,  gentler  than  twilight ;  I  love  her  with  my 
whole  heart ;  for  her  "I  'd  gladly  lay  me  doun  and 
dee." 

What  possibilities  of  glorious,  tender  sentiment 
were  beclouded  in  Thomas  Carlyle  by  his  discovery 
during  college  days  of  what  he  calls,  "That  villain- 
ous thing  called  a  stomach !"  A  touch  of  dyspepsia 
seems  to  have  invaded  his  moral  and  intellectual 
nature.  Pure  and  deep  are  the  streams  flowing 
bright  and  clear  through  sunny  days  and  divine 
beauty  from  the  soul  of  George  Macdonald.  Who 
that  has  ever  made  acquaintance  with  "Rab  and 
His  Friends,"  by  Dr.  John  Brown,  but  has  been 
compelled  to  pay  the  tribute  of  a  tear?  Where  can 
be  found  a  more  touching  story  than  "Beside  the 
Bonnie  Brier-bush,"  and  that  glorious  "Doctor  of 
the  Old  School?"  This  Scotch  quality  in  Knox 
was  mostly  spent  in  impassioned  oratory  in  his  at- 
tacks on  popery  and  his  efforts  to  save  Scotland. 

He  has  been  assailed  for  unfeeling  sternness 
toward  women.  A  book  has  been  written  on  the 
subject,  and  pages  of  history  have  been  wasted  by 
slurring  misrepresentation.  There  was  in  his  blood 
something  of  his  Gaelic  or  Pictish  ancestors,  who 


The  Man  and  His  Country.  35 

were  polygamists,  and  lived  in  the  dim  light  of  an- 
cient paganism.  He  lived  at  a  time  when  much 
was  left  for  Christianity  to  do  in  lifting  woman  to 
the  level  where  Jesus  placed  her.  He  was  doubt- 
less tinctured  with  the  supposed  "Pauline"  view, 
and  tinged  his  teaching  by  ancient  rather  than  mod- 
ern social  conditions.  This  absurdity  lingers  yet  in 
some  of  the  Churches.  Such  was  Knox  the  dog- 
matic Reformer;  but  Knox  the  man  was  true  and 
tender. 

He  met  woman  in  four  distinct  spheres.  First, 
his  wrath  was  aroused  against  such  as  ]\Iary 
of  Lorraine ;  Bloody  Mary,  with  her  three  hundred 
murders ;  Elizabeth,  with  her  talent  and  duplicity ; 
and  with  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  a  very  Eris  of  dis- 
cord. Against  such  he  launched  thunderbolts  of 
just  wrath,  specially  in  his  first  blast  of  the  trumpet 
against  "The  monstrous  regiment  [rule]  of 
women." 

Another  class  of  women  was  represented  by 
those  converted  to  Protestantism,  harried,  and 
abused  by  their  persecutors.  His  letters  to  a  group 
of  these,  and  left  to  posterity,  show  him  a  most 
tender  and  sympathizing  shepherd  and  a  man  who 
venerated  womanhood. 

A  third  test.    It  is  a  trite  untruth  that  a  mother- 


36  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

in-law  is  more  unendurable  than  other  women. 
Knox  had  one  with  whom  to  deal.  She  was  a  mel- 
ancholy, repining  soul,  with  morbid  conscience.  His 
letters  to  her  show  a  tenderness  and  forbearance  of 
the  most  delicate  fondness.  As  fine  a  tribute  to  the 
Reformer's  gentleness  as  need  be  found. 

A  fourth  proof  of  his  chivalry  is  seen  in  that  he 
was  twice  married.  Nor  did  his  first  wife,  Mary 
Bowes  when  dead,  nor  her  children,  fall  away  from 
tcnderest  memories,  and  the  two  sons  received  his 
unchanging,  generous  care.  His  second  wife,  very 
young  (it  was  joining  sixteen  to  fifty-nine),  was 
high  born,  and  related  to  the  house  of  Stewart.  It 
was  this  wife  with  whom  he  communed  most  in- 
timately during  the  last  week  of  his  life,  requesting 
her  frequently  to  read,  and  especially  the  Scripture 
most  sacred  to  him. 

With  such  an  undertone  of  tender  sentiment, 
he  is  all  the  more  admirable  for  having  withstood 
the  well-nigh'  resistless  influence  of  Mary,  Queen 
of  Scots.  Without  rudeness  or  coarseness,  he  stood 
amid  the  swirling  influences  about  him,  like  a 
Scotch  granite  mountain  amid  the  flood.  In  the  de- 
velopment of  our  hero  we  shall  trace  some  of  these 
elements  later  on. 


PART  II. 

HIS    ERA. 


CHAPTER  I. 
REFORMER. 

H^  was  one  of  the  world's  few  conspicuous  Re- 
formers. To  understand  him  we  must  glance  at 
the  condition  in  the  world  which  he  confronted  and 
the  men  he  encountered.  Of  these  there  were  two 
kinds,  favorable  and  unfavorable. 

Yonder  in  Spain  was  Philip  11.  Charles  V, 
weary  and  sick,  had  abdicated  in  favor  of  Philip. 
This  vain,  ambitious,  cruel  monarch  tainted  all  he 
touched.  Even  the  Philippine  Islands  bear  not  only 
his  name,  but  his  blight.  He  married  Bloody  Mary, 
of  England,  for  the  purpose  of  uniting  that  country 
to  the  scheme  of  crushing  Protestantism  from  the 
world.  It  was  his  purpose  to  subjugate  France, 
with  the  same  end  in  view.  Later  he  sent  the  Duke 
of  Alva,  intending  to  tear  out  the  heart  of  brave 
Holland. 

39 


40  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

In  the  time  of  Knox,  France  was  under  those 
arch-murderers,  the  Guises,  by  whose  order  seventy 
thousand  Protestant  French  were  slaughtered 
within  a  week.  To  this  day  one  looks  with  horror 
on  the  old  church-tower  of  Saint  Germaine  in 
Paris,  whence  the  signal  for  this  work  of  blood  rang 
out.  For  this  slaughter  the  pope  in  Rome  gave 
thanks. 

Nearer  Knox's  home.  Bloody  Mary's  work  went 
on  in  England  until  she  had  destroyed  more  than 
three  hundred  martyrs.  Succeeding  her  was  the 
no  less  incorrigible  Elizabeth,  willful,  cunning, 
treacherous,  unreliable.  These  Tudor  half  sisters 
were  daughters  of  Henry  VIII,  divorce  chieftain  of 
England,  characterized  by  Dickens  as  a  blotch  of 
grease  and  blood  on  the  page  of  English  history. 

Yonder  at  Rome  was  Leo  X,  succeeded  by  eight 
more  popes  in  rapid  succession  during  the  life  of 
Knox,  each  with  his  long  finger  reaching  out  to  con- 
trol all  the  world,  Scotland  included. 

In  Scotland  he  encountered  a  seemingly  hope- 
less task.  The  papal  Church  having  universal  sway 
is  doubtless  well  described  by  the  penetrating,  wide- 
eyed  Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  his  romance  "The  Mon- 
astery."    He  pictures  Abbot  Boniface  as  about  to 


His  Era.  41 

surrender  his  office  to  his  successor.  He  consoled 
himself  over  his  fidelity  by  a  review  of  "Indulg-- 
ences,"  "Drinks,"  "Boiled  Almonds,"  "Improve- 
ment of  Revenues,"  "A  Curious  Screen  to  Secure 
from  the  Northeast  Wind."  "It  cost  me  no  little 
thought,  no  common  toil,  to  keep  these  mighty  mat- 
ters in  order."  "Barn  and  bin  to  be  kept  full," 
"Dormitory,"  "Guest  Hall,"  "Refectory,"  "Proces- 
sions," "Confessions ;"  "I  have  lain  awake  for  a  full 
hour  by  the  clock  thinking  how  these  matters  might 
be  ordered." 

Though  fiction,  this  was  true  to  life. 

It  suggests  Cardinal  Beaton — no  fiction — enjoy- 
ing from  his  castle  window  at  St.  Andrews,  a  view 
of  the  burning  of  a  talented,  heroic  young  man,  who 
had  been  Knox's  spiritual  teacher. 

McCrea,  in  his  life  of  Knox,  says  of  the  state 
of  the  Church  in  Scotland:  "The  corruption  had 
grown  to  a  greater  height  in  Scotland  than  in  any 
ether  nation  within  the  pale  of  the  Western  Church. 
Superstition  and  imposition  existed  in  their  gross- 
est forms.  The  clergy  obtained  exorbitant  opulence 
and  power,  accompanied  with  corruption.  One- 
half  of  the  wealth  of  the  nation  belonged  to  the 
clergy.  Bishops  and  abbots  rivaled  the  nobility  in 
magnificence.     They  long  engrossed  the  powerful 


'A 


42  John  Knox:  The;  Reformer. 

offices  of  state.  Bishops  never  preached ;  they  kept 
harlots,  and  bestowed  benefices  on  their  sons.  The 
hvcs  of  the  clergy  were  a  scandal.  Nunneries  and 
monasteries  were  the  haunts  of  lewdness  and  de- 
bauchery. The  kingdom  swarmed  witli  idle,  luxur- 
ious monks,  who,  like  locusts,  devoured  the  fruits 
of  the  earth." 

In  undertaking  his  work  as  Reformer,  there  was 
a  swarm  of  nobles  to  be  dealt  with,  half  Protestant, 
but  mercenary  in  their  dealings  with  civil  and  re- 
ligious affairs.     They  were  land-grabbers. 

Martyrdom  was  the  reward  of  dissent  in  Scot- 
land, and  had  been  so  for  many  a  year.  Knox's  an- 
cestors in  the  Dark  Ages,  as  Druids,  would,  of 
course,  use  the  argument  of  torture  and  fire  to  se- 
cure conformity.  In  1407,  James  Risley  was  burned 
at  Glasgow.  In  143 1  Paul  Carew  was  burned  at 
St.  Andrews — save  the  saint !  In  1494,  the  Lollards 
were  scattered  and  broken.  About  1525.  Patrick 
Hamilton  was  burned  at  St.  Andrews.  Then  fol- 
lowed ten  more  victims.  Nineteen  years  after  Ham- 
ilton, George  Wishart  went  up  through  fire.  The 
last  of  this  illustrious  line,  John  Hill,  when  over 
eighty  years  of  age,  was  burned.  Knox  was  sen- 
tenced to  die,  but,  being  absent  from  the  country, 


His  Era.  43 

was  burned  in  effigy.  In  the  "John  Knox  House" 
in  Edinburgh  is  seen  the  room  where  a  bullet 
whizzed  past  his  head.  He  took  his  life  in  his  hand 
when  he  entered  the  ranks  of  the  glorious  apostles 
and  martyrs. 

It  may  throw  a  side  light  upon  the  situation  to 
remember  that  when  Knox  was  growing  up,  so  were 
the  cathedrals.  For  two  or  three  centuries  these 
had  sprung  up  in  Italy,  at  Florence  and  Milan,  and 
then  the  largest  of  all,  St.  Peter's.  Thence  they  in- 
vaded Holland ;  then  to  England,  where  arose  Can- 
terbury, Ely,  Westminster;  while  St,  Paul's,  Lon- 
don, came  a  century  later.  This  beautiful  menace  to 
popular,  spiritual  life  had  also  invaded  Scotland. 
The  now  ruined  cathedral  of  St.  Andrews  was  fin- 
ished nearly  three  and  a  half  centuries  before  the 
birth  of  Knox.  Another  one  is  yet  found  in  Perth, 
recalling  the  riot  that  swept  it  bare  of  decoration, 
after  Knox's  sermon.  There  is  one  at  Glasgow, 
nearly  two  centuries  in  building,  completed  sixty- 
five  years  before  Knox  was  born.  There  is  St. 
Magnus,  at  Kirkwall,  capital  of  Orkney,  twenty- 
six  miles  north  of  John  o'  Groat's.  It  was  founded 
in  1 137,  before  the  second  Crusade.  What  means 
it  away  there  ofif  the  main  land,  looking  out  almost 


44  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

nine  centuries  over  the  North  Sea?  Knox  and 
cathedrals  did  not  harmonize  well.  Where  his  views 
prevailed,  cathedrals  did  not  flourish.  Far  more 
credit  is  it  that  schools  and  universities  have  ever 
followed  in  his  footsteps. 

"We  are  not  careful  to  answer  thee,  O  king!" 
said  the  unbending  heroes  to  Nebuchadnezzar.  So, 
in  effect,  spoke  Knox  to  Mary  Queen  of  Scots 
and  her  secretary,  who  meant  his  destruction. 
He  had  called  friends  to  stand  by  two  citizens 
arrested  in  a  disturbance  concerning  the  serv- 
ice of  mass,  which  had  been  outlawed  by  the 
Scotch  Assembly.  The  call  issued  by  Knox 
was  regarded  by  Mary  as  treason.  When,  in 
answer  to  her  summons,  she  saw  him,  she  laughed, 
saying,  "Yon  man  made  me  weep,  I  will  see  whether 
I  can  make  him  cry."  The  Reformer  was  cool  and 
clear.  He  proved  that  he  had  a  right  to  summon 
the  friends  of  the  Church.  The  Privy  Council  be- 
fore which  he  stood  were  seized  with  a  stupor  of 
admiration,  and  unanimously  acquitted  him.  The 
queen  left  the  chamber.  Lelhington,  her  secretary, 
was  so  angry  he  recalled  her.  and  had  the  vote 
taken  over.  The  nobles  gave  the  same  vote  of  ac- 
quittal with  indignation.  That  robbed  Knox  of  the 
martvr's  crown. 


His  Era.  45 

"The  Lion  Rampant." 

This  Scottish  symbol,  with  its  motto,  "Nemo  me 
impune  lacessit,"  is  truly  descriptive  of  the  people 
to  be  reformed.  Who  were  these  Scotchmen  ?  One 
line  of  ancestry  runs  back  into  the  dim  past  more 
than  a  thousand  years.  They  were  Picts,  pagans, 
polygamists,  and  fighters  as  savage  and  more  gifted 
than  the  North  American  Indians.  Another  line 
runs  back  across  the  channel  to  Ireland.  A  thou- 
sand years  before  Knox,  these  who  were  the  real 
Scots  invaded  Caledonia,  and  gave  it  the  name  Scot- 
land. Flodden  field,  celebrated  by  Sir  Walter  Scott 
in  his  "Marmion,"  suggests  this  stream  of  history 
affecting  Knox  and  his  times.  While  he  was  a  boy 
of  eight,  the  crushing  calamity  of  this  battle  befell 
the  nation.  This,  and  the  death  of  James  IV,  turned 
over  the  kingdom  to  his  foolish  widow,  Mary  of 
Lorraine.  There  were  in  all  six  kings  of  Scotland 
called  James ;  in  them  mingled  the  blood  of  Robert 
Bruce  and  the  Stewarts.  Marjorie  Bruce  had  mar- 
ried the  Lord  High  Steward  of  Scotland.  The 
spelling  was  changed  when  it  became  royal,  from 
"Steward"  to  Stewart — by  some  branches  modified 
to  Steuart,  or  the  French-born  Stuarts.  Thence 
sprang  this  gifted,  unfortunate  race. 


46  John  Knox:  Tiiic  Reformer. 

Except  the  sixth,  who  became  James  I  of  Eng- 
land, all  these  Scotch  kings  died  of  violence,  either 
by  assassination  or  in  battle.  The  fourth  James 
crossed  the  Southern  border  into  England  with  an 
army.  The  Scots  were  entrapped  on  a  height,  and 
Flodden-field  battle  strewed  the  ground  with  the 
dead  of  nearly  all  the  distinguished  houses  of  Scot- 
land. The  king  fell  amidst  the  fight.  With  the 
stories  of  such  battles  the  boy  Knox  was  familiar. 
To  this  day,  when  the  Highland  regiments  are  or- 
dered out,  it  means  a  Balaklava,  a  relief  for  Luck- 
now,  or  a  Magersfontein.  The  skirl  of  the  bagpipe 
sounding  "The  Campbells  are  Coming"  sends  a 
shiver  through  the  army.  Such  material,  hard  to 
mold,  furnished  for  Knox  his  task. 

This  quality  distinguishing  them  as  hard  fight- 
ers they  transferred  into  the  realm  of  religious  war- 
fare. It  characterized  them  during  their  long  his- 
tory as  pagans,  afterwards  as  Roman  Catholics,  and 
then  as  Presbyterian  Protestants.  After  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  national  Kirk  of  Scotland  in  1560, 
about  one  hundred  years,  there  came  a  split  among 
themselves.  From  this  time  they  divided  fre- 
quently, mostly  to  get  awa}-  from  some  form  of 
secularism  involved  in  the  connection  between  polit- 
ical and  religious  matters  within  the  Kirk.    Of  this 


His  Era.  47 

cleavage  we  have  a  comical  illustration  in  what  is 
now  known  as  the  "Wee  Kirk,"  a  fragment  stand- 
ing out  against  the  religious  spirit  of  this  age  tend- 
ing to  union  rather  than  separation.  So  far  it  holds 
on  to  some  fifty  millions  of  property  in  the  name  of 
about  thirty  ministers  and  a  few  hundred  members 
against  multiplied  thousands  of  their  former  broth- 
erhood. Like  our  hickory,  the  Scottish  Kirk  splits 
easily,  but  is  hard  to  break.  With  such  timber 
Knox  had  to  deal. 

The  most  difficult  influence  within  the  realm  of 
Scotland  which  our  Reformer  confronted  was  that 
of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots.  It  may  not  be  insignifi- 
cant to  note  how  much  this  beautiful  name,  Mary, 
was  then  in  use.  There  was  Mary  of  Lorraine, 
Bloody  Mary,  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  with  four 
waiting  maids  each  named  Mary.  A  serpent  may 
have  a  shining  skin. 

Knox,  coming  in  contact  with  Mary's  court,  had 
to  deal  with  Bothwell,  a  cruel,  dominating  libertine, 
a  very  bull  of  Bashan,  and  with  Darnley,  six  foot  of 
fool,  vain  and  licentious. 

The  young  queen  still  spreads  discord  through 
history,  biography,  and  fiction.  She  had  the  blood 
of  Robert  Bruce  directly  on  the  maternal  side,  and 
that  of  the  house  of  Stewart  in  the  father's  line,  and, 


48  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

added  to  that,  her  mother  was  Mary  of  Lorraine, 
of  the  family  of  Guise.  Is  it  any  wonder  that,  with 
this  triple  nature,  she  could  play  woman,  warrior, 
and  vixen?  She  was  a  diplomat,  fascinating,  cruel, 
and  cunning;  educated  in  France,  and  thus  far  an 
exotic  transplanted  to  Scotland.  Her  life-work  be- 
came one  of  diplomacy,  before  which  all  men  bent 
with  one  exception,  and  that  man  stood  amid  temp- 
est and  tide  until  the  day  broke — and  his  name  was 
Knox. 

An  Open  Door. 

His  task  as  a  Reformer  may  also  be  understood 
by  the  openings  and  helpers  as  well  as  the  obstacles. 

Columbus  discovered  America  thirteen  years  be- 
fore the  birth  of  Knox.  It  was  well  for  this  conti- 
nent and  the  far  reach  of  his  mission  that  he  was 
born  so  soon  after  the  discovery.  This  will  be 
clearer  later  on.  When  his  forerunner,  Luther,  was 
entering  a  monastery  in  Germany  instead  of  a  law 
office,  Knox  was  a  child  of  two  years  at  home  in 
Haddington.  When  Erasmus,  the  Dutch  scholar, 
first  printed  the  New  Testament  in  Greek,  thus 
"laying  the  egg  which  Luther  hatched,"  Knox 
was  a  lad  of  eleven  years  in  school  at  Had- 
dington.      When  Luther  was  nailing  his  Ninety- 


His  Era.  49 

five  Theses  to  the  church-door  in  Witten- 
berg, Knox  was  a  boy  of  twelve.  When 
Henry  VHI  chose  to  play  pope  in  England,  Knox 
was  twenty-six  years  of  age,  engaged  in  study. 
When  Ignatius  Loyola  organized  a  company  of  nine 
persons  at  Rome  for  the  Jesuit  movement,  Knox 
was  thirty-two  years  of  age,  still  in  obscurity.  When 
Coverdale  translated  the  Bible  into  English,  Knox, 
who  was  to  use  it  as  his  sword  of  battle,  was  thirty- 
three  years  of  age,  yet  in  papal  darkness.  When 
George  W^ishart  returned  from  the  influence  of  the 
Reformation  in  Germany,  Knox  had  reached  his 
fortieth  year,  and  was,  by  this  scholarly  leader, 
brought  into  the  light  of  Reformation.  When 
Charles  V  turned  the  empire  over  to  Philip  H, 
Knox  had  been  out  into  the  light  some  ten  years, 
nearly  two  of  which  had  been  spent  chained  to  the 
oars  as  a  galley  slave.  When  the  famous  '"beggars" 
received  their  nickname  in  Holland,  Knox  was  six- 
t}'-one  years  of  age,  and  sixty-two  when  Alva  the 
butcher  arrived  in  Holland.  When  St.  Barthol- 
omew's massacre  took  place,  the  painful  news 
roused  Knox  to  one  more  tremendous  denunciation 
of  papal  crime  in  the  year  when  he  died  at  the  age 
of  sixty-seven.  Thus  by  friend  and  foe,  by  events 
4 


50  JouN  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

favorable  and  adverse,  the  door  was  opened  to  him 
in  accomplishing  the  most  successful  reform  of  any 
during'  the  sixteenth  century. 

Some  John  the  Baptists. 

There  were  Reformers  before  Knox.  Luther 
preceded  Calvin.  Both  were  anticipated  by  Zwingli ; 
he  was  enlightened  by  Wyttenbach ;  Savonarola 
was  before  both  by  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Jerome 
and  Huss  were  before  Luther's  day  by  a  hundred 
years,  their  bodies  burned  and  their  ashes  thrown 
into  the  Rhine.  Wyclif,  though  he  escaped  martyr- 
dom, was,  thirty  years  after  his  death,  honored  by 
having  his  body  burned,  the  ashes  thrown  into  the 
Swift,  which  runs  into  the  Avon,  thence  into  the 
Severn,  and  on  to  the  sea.  The  Albigenses  of 
Southern  France  were  two  centuries  before  Huss 
and  three  centuries  before  Luther.  The  Waldenses 
amid  the  Alps  anticipated  the  Albigenses  by  half  a 
century.  Looking  more  widely  over  human  history, 
we  are  amazed  at  the  persistence  of  human  back- 
sliding. Divine  patience,  and  Reform.  They  swing 
back  and  forth  through  the  centuries  like  the  flow 
and  cl)b  of  the  tide.  God  lost  his  grip  on  Adam. 
Abel  was  a  Reformer.  Again,  "the  heart  of  man 
was  fully  set  in  him  to  do  evil."    Then  Noah  tried  to 


His  Era.  51 

lead  the  world  back  to  God.  Abraham  came  out  of 
Chaldea  to  start  a  Reform  of  faith  toward  Jehovah. 
Moses  led  another,  to  substitute  for  the  Canaanite 
backsliders  a  people  whose  God  should  be  the  Lord. 
The  history  of  the  Judges  is  a  repetition  of  Ref- 
ormations. The  kings  and  their  kingdoms  show  a 
series  of  backslidings  and  abortive  Reformations. 
The  prophets  were  Reformers.  John  the  Baptist 
in  this  was  the  greatest  of  them  all.  The  personal 
ministry  of  Jesus  Christ  was  a  failure  as  a  Jewish 
Reformation,  but  the  inauguration  of  a  Reform 
without  end. 


CHAPTER  II. 
"THE  TWO-EDGED  SWORD." 

Preacher. 

By  preaching  mainly  Knox  accomplished  his 
work  as  Reformer.  We  shall  notice  his  qualification 
for  this  office  later  on.  While  yet  a  Roman  Catholic 
student,  he  quietly  spoke  against  papal  abuses  at  St. 
Andrews,  and  was  driven  out.  As  private  tutor  in 
the  families  of  two  noblemen  he  was  accustomed  to 
hear  objections  to  Church  abuses,  and  gave  his  con- 
sent; but  not  till  the  late  age  of  forty-one  was  he 
called  out  as  Protestant  preacher.  The  place  where 
this  occurred  is  full  of  interest.  Cross  the  river 
Forth  from  Edinl)urgh,  go  thirty-one  miles  north- 
easterly, and  you  will  find  a  promontory  looking  out 
on  the  German  Ocean.  There  is  an  old  city  of  near 
seven  thousand  people,  with  not  nuich  happening, 
except  golf-playing  in  summer-time.     There  is  a 

52 


His  Era.  53 

university  with  two  hundred  students ;  Tulloch  was 
but  one  of  its  illustrious  professors.  There  are  a 
couple  of  impressive  ruins,  the  cathedral,  which  was 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  in  building,  and  a  castle, 
now  a  desolated  old  pile.  In  the  cathedral  church 
John  Rough,  somewhat  resembling  his  own  name, 
officiated  as  Protestant  preacher.  Knox  was  ac- 
customed to  attend ;  as  is  often  the  case  when  the 
Church  is  alive,  a  conviction  got  abroad  among  the 
worshipers  that  John  Knox  ought  to  devote  himself 
to  the  work  of  preaching.  It  was  agreed  that  Rough, 
during  a  public  service,  should  declare  this  convic- 
tion and  summon  Knox  to  undertake  the  work.  At 
the  close  of  his  sermon,  to  the  astonishment  of 
Knox,  he  announced  the  conviction  and  the  sum- 
mons. Knox  was  overwhelmed,  hesitated,  trem- 
bled, broke  into  tears,  and  retired  in  confusion  to 
deliberate  and  pray;  for  he  well  knew  the  tremen- 
dous responsibility  and  the  risk  involved.  In  this 
he  reminds  us  of  another  prophet  who  exclaimed, 
"I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips ;"  but  in  both  cases  the 
fire  from  off  the  altar  touched  the  lips.  Great  lead- 
ers are  reluctant.  It  is  well  for  the  Church  and  the 
world  if  this  distinctness  of  call,  in  which  the 
Church  and  Divine  providence  blend,  shall  ever  con- 
tinue. 


54  John  Knox:  Thr  Reformer. 

In  a  few  days  the  Reformer  entered  the  pulpit, 
and  selected  for  his  text  the  seventh  chapter  of  Dan- 
iel, and  proceeded  to  arraign  the  papacy  as  the  beast 
described  by  the  prophet.  This  formed  the  keynote 
of  the  earlier  part  of  his  subsequent  ministry.  Paul's 
"man  of  sin"  was  to  Knox,  without  doubt,  the  pope. 
Having  thus  begun  his  appeal  to  the  Scripture,  he 
continued  relying  upon  it  as  the  sword  of  the  Spirit. 
In  this  he  was  a  model  for  the  pulpit  in  all  time.  An 
ethical  gospel  is  inevitably  essential ;  so  must  it  be 
educational  and  reformatory;  but  Athens  went  to 
moral  perdition  when  her  art,  literature,  and  logic 
were  at  their  highest.  So  Roman  law  was  as  the 
withes  on  Samson  to  iDind  human  depravity,  and 
must  be  so  in  any  age.  It  was  Peter's  use  of  the 
Scripture,  as  of  the  other  apostles,  that  led  to  the 
Pentecost.  The  Dark  Ages  were  dispelled  by 
Wyclif,  Luther,  and  Knox  wielding  this  same  sword. 
It  is  true  that  up  to  the  later  years  of  his  life  he  was 
mainly  a  prophet  of  the  Old  Testament,  but  denun- 
ciation of  wrong  is  far  from  lacking  in  the  sermons 
of  Peter  and  of  John,  the  loving  disciple.  It  is  the 
latter  who  portrays  men  calling  "for  rocks  and 
mountains  to  fall  on  them  and  hide  them  from  the 
wrath  of  the  Lamb  and  the  face  of  Him  who  sitteth 
on  the  throne."   The  modern  pulpit  will  never  sue- 


His  Era.  55 

ceed  without  a  sword  with  two  edges,  both  law  and 
gospel.  The  preaching  of  Knox  and  other  Reformers 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  though  Scriptural,  ex- 
pended its  force  very  largely  in  the  realm  of  theor^'^, 
and  very  little  in  that  of  personal  experience.  Tlie 
former  quality  belongs  essentially  to  the  Reformer's 
calling,  the  latter  to  that  of  the  revivalist. 

In  the  Pulpit. 

His  style  of  preaching  was  a  combination  of  In- 
tellectual reasoning  and  powerful  oratory.  Being 
a  trained  dialectician  and  logician,  he  took  time  in 
preparing  the  way  for  application  and  appeal.  It 
was  a  day  of  long  sermons,  and  the  people  were 
willing  to  have  it  so.  As  late  as  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century  the  Westminster  Assembly  in 
London  had  single  prayers  lasting  two  hours,  and 
sermons  even  longer.  They  stand  for  final  perse- 
verance. 

After  Knox  had  deliberately  laid  the  foundation 
of  his  sermon,  then  came  application  and  appeal, 
sweeping  all  before  him,  James  Melville,  his  de- 
voted student  and  follower,  gives  his  own  experi- 
ence as  a  listener  at  St.  Andrews,  whither  Knox 
retired  from  Edinburgh  for  a  time  for  safety. 
He    says    he    began    at    the    first    of    the      ser- 


56  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

men  to  take  notes,  but  after  awhile  was  so 
thrilled  and  carried  away  as  to  be  unable  to  pro- 
ceed with  the  writing.  There  is  an  oft-quoted  sen- 
tence of  Randolph,  English  ambassador,  who,  in 
writing  to  Cecil,  Lord  Secretary  of  England,  de- 
clares, ''This  man  puts  more  life  into  us  in  one  hour 
than  six  hundred  trumpets  blustering  in  our  ears." 
After  Knox's  return  from  Geneva  he  preached  a 
sermon  in  Perth  on  the  idolatry  of  the  mass,  which 
swept  all  before  him  like  a  storm.  An  unfortunate 
aflfair  followed,  in  a  measure  deplored  by  Knox.  A 
priest  on  his  way  to  offer  mass  jostled  against  a  boy, 
who  in  anger  threw  a  stone.  This  was  followed  by  a 
wild  riot ;  and  such  was  the  excited  condition  of  the 
great  crowd  that  it  stripped  the  church  of  its  images 
and  ornaments;  nor  did  this  excitement  stop  at 
Perth,  but  extended  to  a  number  of  places,  and 
notably  to  St.  Andrews.  In  commenting  on  this, 
Knox  called  the  crowd  a  "rascall  multitude,"  and 
remarked  that  they  "destroyed  the  rookeries  that 
the  rooks  might  not  return." 

When  the  Earl  of  Murray,  to  whom  Knox  was 
much  attached,  had  been  assassinated,  the  Re- 
former's funeral  discourse  was  so  moving  as  to 
bring  three  thousand  hardy  Scotchmen  to  tears. 
When  in  later  life  he  became  too  feeble  to  enter  the 


His  Era.  57 

pulpit  without  help,  he  would  become,  during  the 
sermon,  so  aroused  by  the  sweep  of  his  own  earnest- 
ness as  to  look  as  though  he  would  "ding  the  pulpit 
into  blads  and  flee  out  of  it."  When  his  strength 
was  apparently  too  far  gone  ever  to  preach  again, 
the  news  of  the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre  reached 
Scotland.  Knox  was  carried  to  the  pulpit  in  Edin- 
burgh, whither  he  had  returned  from  St.  Andrews, 
and  again  preached  an  overwhelming  discourse,  dur- 
ing which  he  portended  the  doom  awaiting  Charles 
IX,  King  of  France,  who  had  looked  on  the  scene 
rejoicing.  The  French  ambassador  being  present  in 
the  congregation,  Knox  personally  charged  him  to 
bear  this  judgment  to  his  master.  The  world  is  in- 
formed of  the  agony  in  which  the  guilty  king  died, 
it  is  said,  with  the  blood  exuding  from  his  pores,  in 
fulfillment  of  the  prediction  of  Knox. 

His  ability  to  preach  to  the  more  courtly  and 
cultured,  if  not  more  intellectual,  was  proven  dur- 
ing his  residence  in  England,  after  he  had  been  de- 
livered from  the  French  galleys.  This  was  before 
he  unwillingly  fled  to  Geneva  from  the  persecutions 
of  Mary.  He  was  one  of  the  six  chaplains  to  James 
VI,  and  was  in  his  turn  competent  preacher  to  the 
most  distinguished  audience  in  England. 

Knox  was  a  six-sided  preacher.    When  install- 


58  John  Kxox:  The  Reformer. 

ing  his  successor  he  could  look  back  and  conscien- 
tiously say :  "I  have  preached  with  a  mind  void  of 
hatred  against  men;  my  object  was  to  gain  them 
to  the  Lord.  I  never  made  merchandise  of  God's 
\\'ord,  never  studied  to  please  men,  nor  indulged  my 
own  or  others'  private  passions ;  I  sought  the  edifi- 
cation of  the  Church."  These  six  things  he  did 
as  we  have  seen,  with  a  final  appeal  to  the  Word  of 
God.  This  weapon  he  used  as  the  sword  of  the 
Spirit  with  as  much  vigor  as  Peter  used  his  carnal 
weapon  at  the  gate  of  Gethsemane,  but  with  more 
discretion. 

The  Kingdom  of  He.wen  Suffereth  Violence. 

In  studying  the  work  of  Knox  and  the  Reform- 
ers, the  question  suggests  itself,  why  might  not  there 
have  been  less  of  assault  and  denunciation  and  more 
of  personal  appeal,  thus  bringing  Reformation 
through  indi\'idual  action  rather  than  breaking  down 
institutions  followed  by  hostilities,  often  emanating 
in  war  and  bloodshed  ?  John  Wesley  acknowledged 
the  usefulness  of  Knox,  but  deprecated  his  spirit. 
"A  calm,  even  spirit  goes  through  rough  work  bet- 
ter than  a  furious  one,"  said  he.  It  is  often  sug- 
gested by  Roman  Catholics  that  the  Reformation 
was  on  its  way,  and  would  have  come  of  itself 


His  Er-\.  59 

within  the  Church.  Over  ag-ainst  this  stands  the 
fact  that  reforms  and  revivals  seldom,  if  ever,  come 
through  Councils,  with  their  edicts  and  plans  of 
campaign. 

The  histor}^  of  Catholicism  is  punctuated  with 
a  chain  of  Councils  that  have  but  increased  the  e%-ils 
they  imdertook  to  correct  by  decrees,  even  to  the 
last  Ecumenical  under  Pius  IX,  which  perpetrated 
the  farce  of  Papal  Infallibility.  If  the  way  to  re- 
form is  to  ignore  the  evils  of  ecclesiastical  tAxanny, 
tlien  why  are  South  America,  Mexico,  and  Italy  so 
desperately  degenerated  after  long  centuries  of  un- 
challenged priestcraft?  Had  John  Knox  omitted 
his  denunciations  of  the  papacy,  the  Reformation 
would  never  have  come.  Standing  up  against  that 
daric  wall  encirchng  him,  his  method  may  have  been 
the  only  one  to  break  through.  We  are  too  prone  to 
forget  that  Jesus,  the  Lover  of  tlie  world,  used  the 
most  terrible  language  of  exposure  and  denuncia- 
tion of  any  prophet  of  the  Old  or  the  New  Testa- 
ment In  this  our  Reformer  walked  in  the  footsteps 
of  Christ.  There  are  abundant  samples  of  tliis  on 
record,  WTien  "Bloody  Marj^'s"  marriage  was  pend- 
ing, Knox  was  at  Dieppe,  where  he  was  sojourning 
awaiting  news  from  England.  He  spoke  of  Mar\' 
as  "under  an  English  name  she  beareth  a  Spanish 


6o  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

heart."  He  personally  addressed  Gardiner,  the 
Bishop  of  Winchester,  in  no  very  oily  terms  thus: 
"O,  thou  beast,  more  cruel  than  any  tiger,  art  thou 
not  ashamed,  bloody  beast,  to  betray  thy  native 
country?  Fearest  thou  not  to  open  such  a  door  to 
all  iniquity,  that  the  whole  of  England  shall  be  made 
a  common  stew  for  Spaniards?  So  wilt  thou  gratify 
thy  father  the  devil,  and  his  lieutenant  the  pope, 
whom,  with  all  his  baggage,  thou  laborest  with 
tooth  and  nail  to  flourish  again  in  England.  Why 
seekest  thou  the  blood  of  Thomas,  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  of  good  Father  Hugh  Latimer,  and  of 
that  most  earnest  and  discreet  man,  Dr.  Ridley,  true 
Bishop  of  London  ?"  And  much  more  of  this  sort, 
revealing  the  kind  of  fearless  soul  and  the  gift  of 
plain,  scathing  vituperation  in  this  Scotch  fighter. 

He  had  been  in  close  fellowsliip  and  official  re- 
lation with  the  rare  trio  above  named.  They  were 
men  of  unusual  scholarship,  piety,  and  gentleness. 
They  went  to  the  tower,  that  grim  old  castle,  to- 
gether; thence  to  the  common  prison  in  Oxford; 
thence  to  the  stake  in  front  of  Balliol  College,  and 
perished  in  the  flames.  One  can  there  see  their 
names  carved  on  the  same  marble  shaft,  one  of  Eng- 
land's milestones  on  her  march  from  savagery 
toward  a  loftv  Christianity. 


His  Era.  6i 

It  is  a  mistake  to  regard  Knox  in  the  light  of  an 
Old  Testament  prophet  exclusively.  As  is  often  the 
case  with  strenuous  warriors,  he  mellowed  toward 
the  end.  His  last  series  of  sermons  preached  in  St. 
Giles,  Edinburgh,  was  on  the  crucifixion.  He  in- 
tended to  follow  it  with  a  sermon  on  the  resurrec- 
tion. His  own  death  came  before  the  sermon,  so 
that  he  must  illustrate  the  event  in  his  own  experi- 
ence.   "At  eve  it  shall  be  light." 

Destructive  and  Constructive;  Reformation. 

Reformers  are  prone  to  the  work  of  destruction, 
leaving  to  others  mainly  the  work  of  reconstruction. 
Knox  was  both,  with  the  emphasis  at  first  upon  de- 
struction. Had  it  not  been  so,  Scotland  would  have 
been  other  than  it  is.  He  was  not  wholly  destruct- 
ive. It  was  mainly  under  his  influence  that  in  1560 
Scotland  was  born  as  a  nation ;  its  civil  polity  es- 
tablished ;  a  confession  of  faith  drawn  up  and  pro- 
mulgated ;  public  education  provided  for  every  Scot- 
tish child,  with  university  privileges  for  every  one 
who  would  avail  himself  of  them.  It  was  he  who 
sowed  the  seed  of  democracy  which  made  the  work 
of  Cromwell,  eighty  years  afterwards,  possible,  out 
of  which  came  the  British  House  of  Commons  and 


62  John  Knox  :  Tiir;  Reformer. 

before  which  fled   forever  the  tyrannical  assump- 
tions of  the  Stewarts. 

There  is  often  an  intimate  relation  between  Ref- 
ormation and  Revolution.  This  arises  largely  from 
the  long-lived  misunion  of  civil  and  religious  affairs. 
It  was  over  a  hundred  years  after  Knox  before  what 
is  known  as  the  Revolution  of  1688  occurred.  James 
II,  from  whom  the  Jacobite  party  and  name  orig- 
inated, undertook  the  restoration  of  the  papacy  in 
Great  Britain,  but  under  the  pretext  of  toleration. 
The  people  rose  in  revolt,  and  called  his  son-in-law, 
William  of  Orange,  a  foreigner,  to  the  throne.  In- 
telligent readers  need  not  be  reminded  that  this  was 
not  William  the  Silent  wearing  the  name  of  Orange. 
That  splendid  hero  was  assassinated  a  hundred  years 
before,  fighting  the  battle  of  Protestantism  in  Hol- 
land. The  American  Revolution  of  '76  came  eighty- 
eight  years  later  than  that  of  England,  but  was  its 
natural  offspring.  Both  of  these  trace  back  to  the 
work  of  John  Knox,  and  both  left  the  worUl  better. 
In  contrast  with  such  Revolutions  came  later  that 
civil  horror  known  as  the  French  Revolution,  whicii 
only  wrought  ruin  because  destitute  of  the  spirit  of 
true  Reformation.  It  broke  down  the  Inquisition, 
but  put  nothing  good  in  its  place.  In  1906  dises- 
tablishment comes  as  a  bloodless  revolution. 


His  Era.  63 

As  I  write  these  pages,  there  breaks  on  the 
startled  world  the  thunder  of  Revolution  in  the  Rus- 
sian Empire.  It  seems  to  presage  the  fulfillment  of 
the  teaching  of  Knox  concerning  the  rights  of  man ; 
nor  can  Turkey,  China,  or  Persia  escape.  The  drag- 
on's power  is  broken  in  far  Thibet,  while  the  Cres- 
cent of  the  cruel  Moslem  fades  out.  Does  it  not 
signify  a  fulfillment  of  the  Scripture,  "The  remov- 
ing of  those  things  that  are  shaken  that  those  things 
that  are  not  shaken  may  remain  ?" 


CHAPTER  III. 
SCHOLARSHIP. 

ThU  question  has  been  raised  whether  Knox  was 
as  great  a  scholar  as  Luther,  Calvin,  Melanchthon, 
or  Zwingli.  The  mere  comparison  is  not  very  im- 
portant, except  as  the  question  may  bear  upon  the 
equipment  of  our  Reformer  for  his  own  work.  It  is 
certain  he  could  not  have  been  the  mighty  preacher 
he  was  whereby  he  did  his  chief  reforming  work 
had  he  not  been  a  man  of  high  scholarship  as  well 
as  intellectual  endowments.  There  is  a  style  of 
scholarship  that  might  have  divided  his  power  and 
detracted  from  his  success.  He  was  too  great  a 
man  for  theological  hairsplitting  and  trivial  iliscus- 
sion  of  linguistic  roots  or  hermeneutical  trifling. 
Such  men  are  useful,  but  very  tiresome  unless  they 
rise  above  it.  In  the  higher  sense  of  learning,  he 
reminds  one  of  St.  Paul,  who  certainly  might  have 
been  a  very  great  and  learned  rabbi,  or  brilliant 

64 


His  Era.  65 

scribe,  or  renowned  orator,  had  he  developed  in 
either  direction ;  but  with  his  motto,  "This  one  thing 
I  do,"  he  gave  up  any  development  in  multiform 
ways  or  an  exhibition  of  all-round  scholarship. 

As  with  most  men  of  great  usefulness,  much  of 
Knox's  preparation  for  his  career  came  unawares. 
While  he  was  a  pupil  under  John  Major,  acquiring 
the  scholarship  of  the  Renaissance,  he  was  unwit- 
tingly imbibing  Protestant  ideas.  That  learning  not 
only  dealt  in  logic  and  literature,  but  sowed  the 
seeds  of  democracy.  This  germinated  into  fruit  as 
he  confronted  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  and  took  the 
position  that  if  rulers  became  unrighteous,  their  peo- 
ple might  call  them  to  account.  This  his  civics  was 
in  turn  propagated  in  the  civil  government  of  Scot- 
land, and  later  in  the  American  colonies. 

He  was  an  earnest  student  of  the  Church 
Fathers,  specially  of  Jerome  and  Augustine.  He 
was  also  something  of  a  linguist.  His  preaching,  as 
well  as  his  five  volumes  of  history  of  the  Scotch 
Reformation  and  his  voluminous  correspondence, 
shows  that  he  uses  the  colloquial,  mongrel  English 
with  great  effect.  A  few  samples  of  this  may  bring 
out  the  man  and  his  times  more  definitely. 

In  his  celebrated  "First  Blast  of  the  Trumpet 
against  the  Monstrous  Regiment  of  Women,"  he 
5 


66  John  Knox:  Tiiii  Rkfor.mer. 

says,  "To  promote  a  woman  to  bear  rule,  superior- 
ity, dominion,  or  empire,  is  a  thing  most  contrarious 
to  His  revealed  well."  From  his  "Ilistorie:"  "Sum 
said  Uthcris  hucd  the  branches  of  papistry,  hot  he 
straiketh  at  the  rute  to  destroy  the  whole.  Utherls 
said  gif  the  magistri  nostri  defend  not  now  the  pope 
and  his  authoritie,  which  is  impugnit,  the  devill  have 
my  part  of  him  and  his  lawes.  Thairfoir  we  wald 
counsail  yow  and  thame  to  provyde  better  defenses 
than  fyre  and  sword."  When  Knox  was  yet  a  gal- 
ley slave  he  wrote:  "I  mene  not  that  any  man  in 
extremitie  of  trubill  can  without  dolour  and  with- 
out feer  of  trubill  to  follow.  Trubill  and  feir  are 
the  verie  spurris  to  prayer." 

"I  the  wryter  hereof  (lat  it  be  said  to  the  laude 
and  prais  of  God  allone),  in  angusche  of  mynd  and 
vehement  tribulatioun  and  afflictioun,  called  to  the 
Lord  when  not  only  the  ungodlic  but  even  my  faith- 
ful brethren,  ye  and  my  awn  self,  judgcit  my  cause 
to  be  irremedeable,  and  yit  my  greatest  calamitie, 
and  when  my  panis  wer  most  cruell  wold  His  eter- 
nal wisdome  that  my  handis  suld  wryt  far  contrarie 
to  the  judgment  of  Carnall  reasone,  whilk  His  mer- 
cie  hath  pruved  trew.    Blcssit  be  His  lialie  name." 

This  vigorous,  idiomatic  mongrel  speech  would 
enable  him  to  lead  his  countrymen  far  more  effect- 


His  Era.  67 

ively  than  would  the  elegant  English  of  Shakes- 
peare or  the  present  pure  speech  of  Edinburgh. 

It  is  a  matter  of  regret  to  find  the  Scotch  dialect 
fading  out.  The  world  is  indebted  to  such  as  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  George  Macdonald,  Crockett,  "Ian 
Maclaren,"  and  Barrie  for  embalming  this  beautiful 
patois  in  fiction  of  a  high  order.  There  seems  so 
much  heartsomeness  in  words  like  "dour"  for  bold, 
"speer"  for  ask,  "byre"  for  cow-house,  "hemmel" 
for  muley-cow,  "ain"  for  own,  "auld"  for  old, 
"bairns"  for  children,  "blat"  for  bashful,  "braes" 
for  hillsides,  "chiel"  for  stripling,  "ding"  for  beat, 
"fash"  for  trouble,  "ken"  for  know,  "syne"  for  since, 
"lippen"  for  lean.  "The  broomy  knowl  over  the 
Grannoch  water." 

He  wrote  "The  History  of  the  Reformation  in 
Scotland"  in  five  books,  besides  papers  and  letters, 
public  and  private,  all  marked  by  keen  insight, 
wealth  of  thought,  clearness  of  expression.  Amid 
all  his  writings  he  published  but  one  sermon. 

He  acquired  other  tongues.  He  would  converse 
with  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  in  French,  and  preached 
in  that  language  as  fluently  as  in  English.  It  was 
necessary  for  him,  in  order  to  be  ordained  as  a  Cath- 
olic priest,  to  understand  Latin,  the  language  used 
in  their  forms  of  worship.     Greek  was  regarded 


68  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

with  suspicion,  but  he  acquired  it  before  he  was  of 
middle  age.  His  love  of  learning  was  all  the  more 
emphasized  in  taking  up  the  study  of  Hebrew  at  his 
earliest  opportunity  when  fifty  years  of  age.  While 
pastor  of  his  congregation  at  Geneva,  there  was  a 
cluster  of  scholars  eminent  enough  to  send  forth 
the  Geneva  Bible,  which  became  so  popular  and 
held  on  so  well  that  it  w^as  carried  in  the  pockets  of 
Cromwell's  soldiers  eighty  years  later,  and  for  a 
long  time  competed  with  King  James's  version,  in 
the  production  of  which  it  furnished  great  assist- 
ance. In  this  Knox  was  a  helper  and  director. 
Measured  by  his  literary  monuments,  he  was  scholar 
up  to  the  needs  of  his  task,  the  completcst  Rcform.v 
tion  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

Blunderer. 

Knox  blundered,  for  he  was  human.  In  his 
"Trumpet  Blast  against  the  Regiment  of  Women," 
issued  from  Geneva,  where  he  was  in  exile,  he  was 
premature  and  too  sweeping.  This  he  afterwards 
conceded,  thus  exhibiting  a  moral  courage  greater 
than  had  he  refused  to  make  the  concession.  In 
this  he  was  like  Luther,  who  hastily  attempted  to 
bridge  the  chasm  from  papal  idolatry  to  freedom 
with  his  fiction  of  consubstantiation.    Both  remind 


His  Era.  69 

one  of  the  Apostle  Paul,  who  conceded  to  the  coun- 
cil his  own  mistake  in  rebuking  the  high  priest,  say- 
ing, "I  wist  not,  brethren,  that  he  was  the  high 
priest."  Only  an  inspired  prophet  is  warranted  in 
being  as  personal  as  Knox  while  preaching. 

Many  a  mistake  has  been  made  in  quoting  "Thou 
art  the  man."  Plainness  of  speech  when  imperti- 
nent or  insolent  may  do  great  harm;  when  kind 
and  personal  it  may  be  as  beneficial  as  sunlight. 
Nathan  rebuked  the  King  in  private  and  won  him 
over  to  repentance.  In  public  he  might  have  mis- 
erably failed.  A  John  the  Baptist  may  cry  out  *'0 
generation  of  vipers."  None  but  a  prophet  such  as 
Nathan  and  the  great  Forerunner  are  sure  of  their 
charges.  Gladstone  was  a  great  man,  but  when 
making  his  maiden  speech  in  Parliament  he  de- 
fended his  father  in  slave-holding;  he  began  as  a 
Tory  in  politics ;  he  expressed  sympathy  witk  the 
Southern  Confederacy  in  the  day  of  our  distress, 
but  he  was  great  enough  to  yield  to  conviction  and 
recant  in  all  three  of  these  mistakes. 

John  Knox  did  apologize  to  Elizabeth.  Judge 
from  his  own  language  to  her  whether  he  made 
amends  for  his  "trumpet  blast." 

"Nothing  in  my  book  contained  is  or  can  be 
prejudicial   to   your   Grace's   just   regiment,    pro- 


70  John  Knox:  Tiik  Reformer. 

vided  that  you  be  not  found  ungrateful  unto  God. 
Ungrate  you  shall  be  proved  in  presence  of  His 
throne,  howsoever  the  flatterers  justify  your  acts, 
if  you  transfer  the  glory  of  that  in  which  you  now 
stand  to  any  other  thing  than  to  the  dispensation  of 
His  mercies,  which  only  maketh  that  truthful  to 
your  Grace  which  nature  and  law  denieth  to  all 
women.  Neither  would  I  that  your  Grace  should 
fear  that  this  your  humiliation  before  God  should, 
in  any  case,  infirm  and  weaken  your  just  and  lawful 
authority  before  men.  Nay,  Madam,  such  un- 
feigned confession  of  God's  benefits  received  shall 
be  the  establishment  of  the  same,  not  only  to  your- 
self but  also  to  your  seed  and  posterity;  where, 
contrariwise,  a  proud  conceit  and  elevation  of  your- 
self shall  be  the  occasion  that  your  reign  shall  be 
unstable,  troublesome  and  short.  God  is  witness 
that  unfeignedly  I  both  reverence  and  love  your 
Grace ;  yea,  I  pray  that  your  reign  may  be  long, 
prosperous,  and  quiet;  and  that  for  the  quietness 
which  Christ's  members,  before  persecuted,  have 
received  under  you.  Yet,  if  I  should  flatter  your 
Grace,  I  were  no  friend,  but  a  deceitful  traitor ; 
and,  therefore,  of  conscience  I  am  compelled  to 
say,  that  neither  the  consent  of  people,  process  of 
time,  nor  multitude  of  men  can   establish   a  law 


His  Era.  71 

which  God  shall  approve ;  but,  whatsoever  He  ap- 
proveth  by  His  eternal  Word  that  shall  be  approved, 
and  whatsoever  He  damneth  that  shall  be  con- 
demned, though  all  men  on  earth  should  hazard  the 
justification  of  the  same.  And  therefore,  Madam, 
the  only  way  to  retain  and  keep  these  benefits  of 
God,  abundantly  poured  out  of  late  days  upon  you 
and  your  realm,  is  unfeignedly  to  render  unto  God's 
mercy  and  undeserved  grace  the  whole  glory  of  this 
your  exaltation.  Forget  your  birth  and  all  title 
which  thereupon  doth  hang,  and  consider  deeply 
how  for  fear  of  your  life  you  did  decline  from  God 
and  bow  in  idolatry.  Let  it  not  appear  a  small 
offence  in  your  eyes  that  you  have  declined  from 
Christ  Jesus  in  the  day  of  His  battle.  Neither  yet 
would  I  that  you  should  esteem  the  mercy  to  be 
vulgar  and  common  which  you  have  received,  to- 
wit,  that  God  hath  covered  your  former  offences, 
hath  preserved  }0u  when  you  were  most  unthankful, 
and  in  the  end  hath  exalted  and  raised  you  up  not 
only  from  the  dust  but  also  from  the  ports  of 
death  to  rule  over  His  people  for  the  comfort  of 
His  Kirk.  It  appertaineth  to  you,  therefore,  to 
ground  the  justness  of  your  authority  not  upon 
that  law  which  from  year  to  year  doth  change,  but 
upon  the  eternal  providence  of  Him  who,  contrary 


72  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

to  nature  and  without  your  deserving,  hath  thus 
exalted  your  head.  If  thus  in  God's  presence  you 
humble  yourself,  as  in  my  heart  I  glorify  God  for 
that  rest  granted  to  His  afllictcd  flock  within  Eng- 
land under  you,  a  weak  instrument,  so  will  I  with 
my  tongue  and  pen  justify  your  authority  and  regi- 
ment as  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  justified  the  same  in 
Deborah,  that  blessed  mother  in  Israel.  But,  if 
these  premises  (as  God  forbid)  be  neglected,  and 
you  shall  begin  to  brag  of  your  birth  and  build 
your  authority  upon  your  law,  flatter  you  whoso 
list,  your  felicity  shall  be  short.  Interpret  my 
words  in  the  best  part,  as  written  by  him  who  is 
no  enemy  to  your  Grace." 

We  also  find  him  involved  in  a  ruse.  He  en- 
couraged Elizabeth  to  send  troops  to  the  aid  of  the 
Scotch,  suggesting  thjft  England  might  send  them 
and  then  escape  reproach  from  France  by  disown- 
ing them  as  rebels.  \\'hile  not  apologizing  for  this 
duplicity,  how  very  slight  and  innocent  it  seems 
compared  with  the  theory,  "All  things  are  fair  in 
war!" 

He  further  blundered  by  accepting  the  theory, 
prevalent  in  his  day,  uniting  things  civil  and  relig- 
ious.   It  was  the  case  with  Rome,  with  France,  with 


His  Era.  73 

Spain,  with  the  English  Episcopacy,  and  in  this 
John  Calvin  at  Geneva  blundered  with  all  the  rest 
of  them.  It  remains  the  embarrassment  and  bane 
of  the  English  Establishment,  and  we  yet  hear 
echoes  of  a  "National  Church  of  America."  This 
the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  disowns. 

We  break  away  from  the  past  reluctantly.  Old 
habits,  like  unbroken  cords,  may  be  hard  to  dis- 
cover and  sever.  Too  wild  a  dash  into  the  un- 
known may  be  perilous  for  the  future  while  it  for- 
feits the  good  already  gained.  The  reforms  of  the 
sixteenth  century  did  not  entirely  sever  Church 
and  State  nor  allow  freedom  of  opinion.  Some- 
times the  reformers  seized  upon  the  rod  of  their 
own  oppressors  and  in  turn  used  it  to  compel  faith. 
Calvin  approved  of  the  execution  of  Servetus.  Beza, 
the  accomplished  scholar,  by  an  elaborate  argu- 
inent,  full  of  honest  fallacy,  justified  it.  That  ar- 
gument in  brief  was  "Heresy  is  disturbing  to  the 
Church  and  should  be  prevented.  The  civil  power 
and  not  the  ecclesiastical  should  see  to  it.  Caesar 
beareth  not  the  sword  in  vain,  therefore  Servetus 
should  have  been  executed."  While  Knox  did  not 
spoil  his  career  by  executing  an  opponent,  he  did 
not  disapprove,  but  seemed  to  favor  the  conduct 


74  John  Knox:  Thk  Reformer. 

of  Calvin  in  this.  He  would  have  applied  this  logic 
to  Bothwell  and  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  but  fortu- 
nately could  not.  The  same  disability  would  have 
been  a  great  good  fortune  to  our  Puritan  ancestors 
in  America. 

The  Savior  of  the  world  held  up  a  beacon-light 
whereby  all  this  folly  might  have  been  avoided. 
Jesus  alone  never  made  mistakes.  It  was  Tie 
who  said,  "Who  made  me  a  judge  or  divider 
over  you?"  "My  kingdom  is  not  of  this  w'orld :" 
"Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Ciesar's, 
and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's;"  "Put  up 
thy  sword ;  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  by 
the  sword." 

Knox,  with  the  rest  of  them,  blundered  in  trans- 
ferring the  theocracy  of  the  Old  Testament  into  the 
polity  of  the  Christian  dispensation. 

In  spite  of  this  mistake,  we  find  his  theory,  as 
incorporated  in  the  organization  of  the  new  govern- 
ment of  Scotland  in  1560,  an  adjustment  out  of 
which  has  come  the  American  government  with 
separation  of  Church  and  State.  In  that  organiza- 
tion it  was  distinctly  provided  that  the  civil  power 
should  be  secondary  to  the  Kirk,  and  yet  be  require  \ 
to  support  it.  Here  was  unfortunately  left  a  lin- 
gering tie  of  embarrassment,  out  of  which  came  the 


His  Era.  75 

"Established  Kirk  of  Scotland,"  and,  on  account  of 
this  lingering  bond  of  union,  most  of  the  splits  in 
that  Kirk. 

We  Americans  have  not  reached  perfection  in 
this  separation  of  Church  and  State.  We  have 
rather  gone  beyond  it.  So  nearly  have  we  divorced 
the  secular  from  the  religious  as  to  imperil  both. 

The  Roman  Catholic  theory,  if  successful,  would 
endanger  our  public  schools  and  threaten  our  na- 
tion. Though  the  practice  of  the  papal  Church  has 
changed,  its  theory  has  not.  It  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  dominate  and  so  destroy  our  system  of 
popular  education.  That  system,  as  we  shall  show, 
started  from  Knox.  But,  so  far  as  the  Bible  has  be- 
come a  banished  book,  we  go  against  its  Author 
and  His  heir  the  child. 

The  recent  attempts  to  restore  it  as  literature  and 
ethics  show  signs  of  sanity.  In  so  far  as  Roman 
Catholics  claim  that  education  is  character-building, 
and  religion  an  essential  element  and  the  State  in- 
competent for  that,  they  are  right.  Protestant 
Americans  relegate  that  to  the  Church  and  the 
home.  This  is  also  right,  but  does  not  go  far  enough. 

To  admit  Minerva  and  OEdipus,  Shakespeare  and 
Horace,  Darwin  and  Froebel,  and  expel  Moses  and 


76  John  Knox:  Thk  Reformer. 

Jesus,  is  a  revolt,  which  tends  to  Atheism  in  our 
schools. 

The  eflforts  to  place  the  name  of  God  in  the  Con- 
stitution would  seem  superfluous  since  He  is  there 
recognized.  We  have  our  chaplaincies  in  army,  con- 
gress, and  court-room.  The  government  protects 
all  people  in  their  rights  to  worship  God  as  con- 
science shall  dictate.  We  are  the  freest  people  on 
earth  and  the  best  governed,  but  it  remains  to  con- 
vert our  art,  commerce,  politics,  and  social  life  back 
to  where  they  each  started  at  the  beginning,  bring- 
ing them  again  under  the  inspiration  of  religion. 

It  may  indicate  the  growing  necessity  of  this  to 
note  that  time  was,  in  this  country,  when  the  min- 
ister was  the  dominating  man  in  community.  Later 
on  the  teacher  divided  with  him  that  ascendency. 
The  editor  came  along,  and  captured  another  large 
segment  of  the  clergj'men's  control.  The  one  now 
in  the  saddle  is  the  commercial  man.  This  man, 
when  he  becomes  a  plutocrat,  often  invades  the  edi- 
torial realm,  directing  the  policy  of  journalism.  He 
enters  the  common  school  and  the  secular  university 
to  direct  what  they  shall  be. 

In  the  denominational  university  he  is  apt  to  be- 
come dictator  to  the  Board  of  Trustees,  director  as 
to  who  shall  be  president,  and  practically  chooses 


His  Era.  77 

the  professors  in  the  various  departments,  himself 
unacquainted  with  the  genius  and  progress  neces- 
sary to  their  truest  work.  He  can,  and  sometimes 
does,  become  arbiter  of  the  poHcy  of  the  Church, 
deciding  whether  it  shall  have  an  adequate  house  of 
worship  and  when,  greatly  influencing  the  choice  of 
ministry.  There  is  danger  that  the  civil  govern- 
ment, the  newspaper  world,  the  university,  and  the 
Church  will  be  found  bowing  down  at  the  feet  of 
the  Dagon  of  wealth. 

Hard  after  this  man  in  the  saddle  rides  the  pur- 
suer after  amusement,  pleasure,  and  indulgence. 
Here  is  a  loud  call  for  the  Edwardses,  the  Einneys, 
the  Moodys,  and  the  hundred  and  forty  thousand 
Christian  ministers,  with  the  millions  of  earnest  peo- 
ple, whose  life  is  consecrated  to  the  doctrine  of  Him 
who  commanded,  "Seek  first  the  kingdom  of  God." 
All  the  great  elements  of  human  society,  art,  litera- 
ture, law,  agriculture,  and  trade  took  their  origin 
in  religion,  whether  pagan,  Jewish,  or  Christian. 
This  excessive  tendency  in  our  country  to  divorce 
them  must  be  reversed,  and  its  accomplishment  lies 
upon  the  Church.  Knox  was  right  in  so  far  as  he 
placed  civil  and  secular  affairs  subordinate  to  re- 
ligion. What  they  need  is  regeneration  rather  than 
subjugation. 


78  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

Was  Knox  a  Hyper-Cai.vixist? 

Here  is  a  partial  portrait  of  Calvin  drawn  by 
Dr.  Philip  Schaff: 

"He  kindled  the  religious  fire  which  roused  the 
moral  and  intellectual  strength  of  Holland,  and  con- 
sumed the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition  and  the  fet- 
ters of  the  political  despotism  of  Spain.  His  genius 
left  a  stronger  mark  on  the  national  character  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  and  the  Churches  of  Great 
Britain  than  their  native  Reformers.  His  theology 
and  piety  raised  Scotland  from  a  semi-barbarous 
condition,  made  it  the  classical  soil  of  Presbyterian 
Christianity,  and  one  of  the  most  enlightened,  ener- 
getic, and  virtuous  countries  on  the  face  of  the 
globe.  His  spirit  stirred  up  the  Puritan  Revolu- 
tion of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  his  blood  ran 
in  the  veins  of  Hampden  and  Cromwell  as  well  as 
Baxter  and  Owen,  He  may  be  called,  in  some 
sense,  the  spiritual  Father  of  New  England  and 
the  American  Republic." 

Dr.  Schaff  was  a  Switzer ;  he  pays  a  fine  trib- 
ute, but,  like  some  of  the  Swiss  water-powers,  tosses 
the  spray  wider  than  the  channel  and  appropriates 
some  of  the  work  of  Knox  and  other  Reformers 
to  Calvin. 


His  Era.  79 

Knox  was  Calvinist  by  conviction,  personal  at- 
tachment, and  reverence  for  the  man  whose  name 
has  overshadowed  the  originator  of  this  embarrass- 
ing scheme  of  religious  metaphysics ;  not  St.  Augus- 
tine but  John  Calvin  gives  name  to  it.  Knox, 
though  older  in  years,  began  later  in  life,  and 
learned  much  from  the  great  Genevan  besides  He- 
brew. He  was  assigned  the  task  of  defending  Cal- 
vinism, Like  many  another  creed,  it  has  needed 
most  defending  at  its  weakest  side. 

Knox  did  it  well,  for  he  had  gifts  for  such  work. 
But,  when  run  back  to  its  higher  sources  nearer 
heaven,  it  practically  meets  in  harmony  with  Ar- 
minian  views.  Neither  robs  any  man  of  a  chance 
for  salvation,  and  compels  no  one.  However  in- 
consistent in  logic,  fatalism  is  denied  by  most  Cal- 
vinists,  whether  in  the  Westminster  Confession  or 
not.  So  Arminians  claim  the  entire  helplessness  of 
man  to  save  himself,  and  each  man  doubts  total  de- 
pravity in  his  own  babe,  but  champions  the  Divine 
sovereignty.  Fatalism  has  its  home  mostly  in  mod- 
ern fiction. 

"It  Doth  Not  Yijt  Appear." 
No  man's  full  potentialities  are  used  in  what  he 
does.    General  Grant  amazed  the  world  by  his  latent 


8o  John  Knox:  The;  Rt:roRMt;R. 

power  as  a  writer,  after  a  military  career  scarcely 
equaled  in  history.  John  Wesley  was  competent  to 
have  eclipsed  Wellington  as  a  military  commander, 
or  Pitt  as  a  statesman.  St.  Paul  could  have  equaled 
Aristotle  in  logic,  or  Demosthenes  in  oratory.  Knox 
could  have  been  Socratic  as  a  teacher,  or  a  Demos- 
thenes as  orator,  or  a  Cavour  as  statesman.  He 
had  not  time  for  these,  but  must  leave  them  for  his 
gigantic  progeny ;  to  the  mention  of  whom  we  shall 
recur  later. 

Lest  I  seem  excessive  in  admiration,  let  me  quote 
from  others.  Froude,  who  could  show  up  his  own 
England  to  her  disadvantage  when  he  saw  occa- 
sion, and  who  showed  a  doubtful  fidelity  in  the  way 
he  exposed  the  literary  remains  of  Carlyle,  who 
could  whitewash  Julius  Ca;sar  into  a  plausible  char- 
acter, has  thus  expressed  himself  concerning  Knox: 
"He  was  no  narrow  fanatic,  who,  in  a  world  in 
which  God's  grace  was  equally  visible  in  a  thousand 
creeds,  could  see  truth  and  goodness  nowhere  but 
in  his  own  formula.  He  was  a  large,  noble,  gen- 
erous man,  with  a  shrewd  perception  of  actual  fact, 
who  found  himself  face  to  face  with  a  system  of 
hideous  iniquity.  Ik-  believed  himself  a  prophet, 
with  a  direct  commission  from  heaven  to  overthrow 


His  Era.  8i 

it,  and  his  return  to  Scotland  became  the  signal, 
therefore,  for  the  renewal  of  the  struggle." 

This  stands  sharply  over  against  the  passionate 
mis  judgment  of  Hume,  who  showed  his  own  in- 
ability to  fairly  weigh  testimony  by  his  celebrated 
absurdity,  supposed  to  be  an  argument  against 
miracles. 

Froude  further  says:  "He  taught  the  peasant 
of  the  Lothians  that  he  was  a  free  man,  the  equal 
in  the  sight  of  God  with  the  proudest  peer  or  prel- 
ate that  had  trampled  on  his  forefathers.  He  was 
the  one  antagonist  whom  Mary  Stewart  could  not 
soften  nor  Maitland  deceive.  He  it  was  that  raised 
the  poor  commoners  of  his  country  into  a  stern  and 
rugged  people.  The  time  has  come  when  English 
history  may  do  justice  to  one  but  for  whom  the 
Reformation  would  have  been  overthrown  among 
ourselves ;  for  the  spirit  which  Knox  created  saved 
Scotland,  and  if  Scotland  had  been  Catholic  again, 
Elizabeth's  ministers,  nor  the  teaching  of  her 
bishops,  nor  Elizabeth's  chicaneries  would  have  pre- 
served England  from  revolution.  But  for  him., 
Mary  Stewart  would  have  bent  Scotland  to  her 
purpose,  and  Scotland  would  have  been  the  lever 
which  France  and  Spain  would  have  worked  on 
6 


82  John  Knox:  Tiiit  Reformer. 

England.  Elizabeth  would  have  been  flung  off  her 
throne,  or  have  gone  back  into  the  Egypt  to  which 
she  was  too  often  casting  wistful  eyes." 

Carlyle,  in  his  essay  on  Sir  Walter  Scott,  speaks 
of  Knox  on  this  wise :  "Honor  to  all  the  brave  and 
true,  everlasting  honor  to  bravo  old  Knox,  one  of 
the  truest  of  the  true!  That  in  the  moment  while 
he  and  his  cause,  amid  civil  broils  in  convulsion  and 
confusion,  were  still  but  struggling  for  life,  he  sent 
the  schoolmaster  forth  into  all  corners,  and  said, 
'Let  the  people  be  taught,' — this  is  but  one,  and  m- 
deed  an  inevitable  and  incomparatively  inconsid- 
erable item  in  his  great  message  to  men.  His  mes- 
sage in  its  true  compass  was,  'Let  men  know  that 
they  are  men,  created  by  God,  responsible  to  God, 
who  work  in  any  meanest  moment  of  time  what  will 
last  to  eternity,' — this  great  message  Knox  did  do- 
liver  with  a  man's  voice  and  strength,  and  found  a 
people  to  believe  him.  The  Scotch  national  charac- 
ter originates  in  many  circumstances ;  first  of  all, 
in  the  Saxon  stuff  there  v/as  to  work  on,  but  next, 
and  beyond  all  else  except  that,  in  the  Presbyterian 
gospel  of  John  Knox." 

In  his  "Heroes  and  Horn  Worship"  he  speaks 
thus:  "This  that  Knox  diil  for  his  nation  wo  may 
really  call  a  resurrection  as  from  death.     It  was 


His  Era.  83 

not  a  smooth  business,  but  it  was  welcome  surely, 
and  cheap  at  that  price  had  it  been  far  rougher.  The 
people  began  to  live.  Scotch  literature  and  thought, 
Scotch  industry,  James  Watt,  David  Hume,  Walter 
Scott,  Robert  Burns, — I  find  Knox  and  the  reforma- 
tion acting  in  the  heart's  core  of  every  one  of  these 
persons.  It  seems  to  me  hard  measure  that  this 
Scottish  man,  after  three  hundred  years,  should  have 
to  plead  like  a  culprit  before  the  world ;  intrinsically 
for  having  been  in  such  a  way  as  it  was  then  possi- 
ble to  be,  the  greatest  of  all  Scotchmen.  Had  he 
been  a  poor  half-and-half,  he  could  have  crouched 
into  the  corner  like  so  many  others ;  Scotland  had 
not  been  delivered,  and  Knox  had  been  without 
blame.  He  bared  his  breast  to  battle,  had  to  row  in 
French  galleys,  wander  forlorn  in  exile,  in  clouds 
and  storms ;  was  censured,  shot  at  through  his  win- 
dows; had  a  right 'sore  fighting  life.  If  this  world 
were  his  place  of  recompense,  he  had  made  but  a 
bad  venture  of  it.  I  can  not  apologize  for  Knox. 
For  one  I  will  remark  that  this  post  of  prophet  to  his 
nation  was  not  of  his  seeking. 

"Knox's  conduct  to  Queen  Mary,  the  harsh 
visits  he  used  to  make  in  her  own  palace  to  reprove 
her  there  have  been  much  commented  on.  On  read- 
ing the  actual  narrative  of  what  Knox  said  and  what 


84  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

he  meant,  I  must  say  one's  tragic  feeling  is  rather 
disappointed.  They  are  not  so  coarse,  these 
speeches ;  they  seem  to  me  about  as  fine  as  the  cir- 
cumstances would  permit.  Knox  was  not  there  to 
act  as  courtier.  He  came  on  another  errand.  Knox 
was  the  constitutional  opposition  party  in  Scotland ; 
the  nobles  of  the  country,  called  by  their  station  to 
take  that  post,  were  not  found  in  it.  Knox  had  to 
go  or  no  one.  Withal  unexpectedly  enough,  this 
Knox  has  a  vein  of  drollery.  He  has  a  true  eye  for 
the  ridiculous.  His  history,  with  its  rough  earnest- 
ness, is  curiously  enlivened  with  this.  A  true,  lov- 
ing, illuminating  laugh  mounts  up  over  the  earnest 
visions;  not  a  loud  laugh  you  would  say,  a  laugh  in 
the  eyes  most  of  all.  They  go  far  wrong  who  think 
this  Knox  was  a  gloomy,  spasmodic,  shrieking 
fanatic.  Not  at  all.  He  is  one  of  the  solidest  of 
men,  practical,  cautious,  hopeful,  patient.  A  most 
shrewd,  observing,  quietly  discerning  man ;  in  fact, 
he  has  very  much  the  type  of  character  they  assign 
to  the  Scotch  at  present.  A  sore  fight.  l)ut  he  won 
it.  'Have  you  hope?'  he  was  asked  in  his  last  mo- 
ment when  he  could  no  longer  speak.  He  lifted  his 
finger,  pointed  upwards,  and  so  died.  Honor  to 
him.    His  works  have  not  died." 

The  Scotchman  is  highly  endowed.    Among  his 


His  Bra.  85 

gifts  is  his  susceptibility  to  superstition.  While 
this  quality  may  lead  to  darkness  and  disaster,  with- 
out it  the  soul  were  shorn  of  its  wings  and  rendered 
incapable  of  art,  poetry,  and  religion.  It  is  doubt- 
ful whether  the  Wesley  family  could  have  produced 
its  great  hymn  writer  and  his  brother,  the  great 
religious  leader,  had  they  been  destitute  of  that 
quality  which  haunted  the  Epworth  rectory  with 
ghosts. 

The  German  with  his  spooks  and  "man  of  the 
Hartz  Mountains"  makes  pietism  possible  and  opens 
the  door  for  the  Moravian  and  German  Methodism, 
the  chief  hope  of  emancipation  from  rationalism 
and  beer. 

The  quality  which  peopled  the  "Heilands"  with 
"bogies"  and  the  meddlesome  "diel"  which  holds 
on  through  Sir  Walter's  stories  and  yet  pervades 
the  American  descendants,  these  qualities  made 
possible  the  orators,  poets,  writers  of  romance, 
leaders  in  philosophy  and  missionary  heroes,  yet 
leading  mankind. 

Reform  and  Revival. 

The  sixteenth  century  and  the  twentieth  century 
may  mutually  illustrate  each  other.  There  are  yet 
New  Englanders  who  call  a  revival  a  "Reforma- 


86  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

tion,"  and  they  are  right.  A  revival  without  refor- 
mation, and  a  Reformation  without  a  revival,  boih 
breed  death.  "Faith  without  works  is  dead."  Which 
should  precede  the  other  were  hard  to  tell.  They 
are  inseparable.  One  leads  legitimately  to  the 
other.  Did  Knox  emphasize  reform  excessively  to 
the  neglect  of  the  revival  ?  The  opportunity  opened 
by  him  for  the  Wesleyan  movement  near  two  hun- 
dred years  later  was  improved  so  as  to  effect  much 
reform,  but  was  chiefly  the  most  gracious  revival 
after  Pentecost  to  that  time. 

In  1858  a  remarkable  revival  spread  all  over 
America  and  swept  across  the  world  to  London,  and 
thence  to  Edinburgh  and  Glasgow  and  Aberdeen, 
returning  something  of  Knox's  seed-sowing  in  a 
rich  harvest.  Later  on,  in  the  year  1873,  Moody 
and  Sankey,  under  a  Divine  impulse,  invaded  Scot- 
land with  a  revival,  which  brought  the  learning  of 
the  foremost  universities  of  the  English-speaking 
world  to  unite  with  the  unlettered  Moody  in  bow- 
ing at  the  feet  of  Jesus.  It  was  a  fair  spectacle  be- 
fore angels  and  men,  when  these  seats  of  meta- 
physics, philosophy,  and  most  enlightened  Biblical 
criticism  came  in  childlike  simplicity  to  the  cross 
of  Christ  with  the  lay  preacher.    They  in  turn  now 


His  Kra.  87 

lead  the  learned  world  in  clustering  nearer  to 
Christ. 

There  has  been  a  lull  and  a  time  of  waiting  for 
the  outbreak  of  the  next  great  revival.  For  a  decade 
there  have  been  men  on  the  outlook  throughout 
Christendom,  and  that  means  as  never  before  in  the 
round  world.  These  watchmen  have  seemed  to 
catch  notes  as  of  the  sound  of  a  mighty  wind  from 
heaven.  There  have  also  been  cautions  against 
prophesying  a  great  awakening,  lest  we  presume  to 
know  in  advance  the  mind  of  God,  but  this  expec- 
tation has  steadily  increased  and  spread  abroad. 

In  1903,  in  India,  Bishop  Thoburn  baptized  in 
one  week  1,747  people,  and  has  repeatedly  declared 
that  ten  millions  more  are  possible  within  ten  years. 
These  raw  heathen  are  transformed  into  witnessing 
martyrs,  both  in  spirit  and  in  practice. 

Wales  has  surpassed  the  days  of  Griffith  Jones, 
Howell  Harris,  and  Whitefield,  with  a  revival  that 
has  moved  men  of  all  grades,  from  the  strongest 
characters  down  to  the  workers  in  the  pits.  The 
beasts  of  burden  could  not  understand  their  con- 
verted drivers  because  of  the  absence  of  former  pro- 
fanity. 

The  sturdy  Presbyterian  Church  anticipated  the 


88  John   Knox:  The  Reformer. 

aggressive  Methodist  denomination  in  a  nation- 
wide, organized,  irresistible,  and  contagious  revival 
movement. 

The  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  with  the  most 
thorough  organization  of  any,  except  the  Roman 
Catholic,  has  resolved  to  utilize  her  machinery,  but 
not  to  depend  upon  it.  There  is  a  rapidly  growing 
"World  League  of  Prayer."  She  is  evidently  draw- 
ing near  the  spirit  of  him  who  said,  "I  will  not  let 
thee  go,"  and  also  close  to  the  heart  of  Him  who 
seems  to  say,  "Can  you  not  discern  signs  and 
times?" 

Ere  this  is  in  print  the  greatest  revival  of  all  the 
past  will  be  here,  or  again  Jesus  will  have  cause  to 
cry,  "O  that  thou  hadst  known  in  this  day  the  things 
that  belong  unto  peace !  but  now  they  arc  hid  from 
thine  eyes  1" 


PART  III. 

MONUMENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 
HIS  MONUMENTS. 

Whirrs  are  they?  Those  of  marble  and  brass 
are  ever  comparatively  insignificant.  At  the  Amer- 
ican Capital  is  a  very  lofty  pillar  to  the  memory 
of  Washington,  five  hundred  and  fifty-five  feet 
high ;  but  there  is  far  more  eloquence  in  the  modest 
tomb  at  Mt.  Vernon, 

Where  are  those  of  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  Al- 
cott,  Thoreau,  modest  little  headstones  at  Concord? 
Their  thoughts  are  as  prolific  as  the  grapes  from 
the  old  mother  vine  hard  by.  The  brewer,  how- 
ever, saw  to  it  while  yet  alive  that  marble  splendor 
in  that  same  cemetery  should  screen  his  name  from 
the  infamy  and  the  sorrows  produced  by  the  beer 
mug.  Where  sleep  Holmes,  Longfellow,  and 
Lowell?  It  is  hard  to  find  their  monuments  in 
Mount  Auburn,  but  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  founded 
by  them,  is  only  one  of  the  shafts  keeping  their 
memory  green. 

Go  to  Geneva ;  the  lofty  equestrian  statue  of  the 
91 


92  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

Duke  of  Brunswick  mounts  high  above  the  city  of 
the  dead.  By  the  mouth  of  the  Rhone  you  will  find 
the  Island  of  Rousseau  and  a  statue  in  bronze  of  the 
"wild,  self-torturing  sophist;"  but  find  the  tomb  of 
John  Calvin  if  you  can. 

Go  to  London,  and  you  may  find  Sir  David 
Wilkie's  picture  of  Knox  in  his  pulpit,  preaching  to 
his  Edinburgh  congregation.  But  we  look  in  vain 
for  any  memorial  of  him  in  Westminster  Abbey, 
that  mausoleum  of  England's  greatness.  In  Glas- 
gow is  a  modest  pillar  to  his  memory. 

Go  to  Edinburgh,  and  you  can  not  avoid  seeing 
the  great  and  beautiful  monument  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  It  could  scarcely  be  too  fine  for  his  tran- 
scendent genius.  I  am  literary  heretic  enough  to 
say  that,  if  Shakespeare  or  Sir  Walter  must  be 
spared,  leave  me  the  Scotch  Wizard. 

There  is  a  modest  statue  of  Knox  preaching, 

also  a  stone-marker  of  the  supposed  burial  place  of 

John  Knox  behind  the  wall  by  St.  Giles's  Church. 

On  the  flat  taljlet  is  the  simple  inscription, 

I   K 

1572 

How  appropriate  the  lines: 

"  Let  the  sound  of  those  he  wrought  for, 
Let  the  feet  ol  those  he  fought  for, 
Echo  round  his  bones  for  evermore." 


Monuments.  93 

There  is  his  house  in  Edinburgh,  a  queer  old 
building  which  he  occupied.  It  came  so  near  fall- 
ing down  and  so  obstructed  the  street  that  the  city 
authorities  were  about  to  remove  it.  The  memory  of 
Knox  was  too  strong  for  the  tide  of  time  and  mod- 
ern life.  Those  who  revered  his  memory  rallied  to 
preserve  and  renew  the  old  house  as  near  as  possi- 
ble after  its  former  plans.  Into  this  has  been  gath 
ered  a  large  number  of  relics,  while  mottoes  taken 
from  the  sayings  of  Knox  as  well  as  others  com- 
memorate much  of  his  life  and  the  history  of  the 
Reformation. 

But  there  is  one  relic  not  included  among  those 
collected  there.  That  one  escaped  to  America,  down 
the  line  of  his  posterity,  and  is  in  possession  of  a 
lineal  descendant  somewhere  in  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania. It  is  an  old  clock,  once  the  property  of 
Knox.  There  is  a  Presbyterian  Academy  in  South 
Salem,  Ohio.  One  of  the  first  two  girl  students  to 
enter  that  school  was  named  Susan  Knox  Stinson,  a 
direct  descendant  from  John  Knox.  If  that  old 
clock  yonder,  possibly  at  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania, 
were  still  running,  it  would  have  ticked  out  the  life 
of  John  Knox  and  Susan  ICnox  Stinson;  for  both 
have  gone. 


94  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

The  Stone  of  Scone  Suggests  Him. 

For  a  long  time  it  was  at  lona,  one  of  the  Heb- 
rides, on  the  west  coast  of  Scotland.  This  island 
was  the  home  of  a  pure  Christianity  according  to 
the  Gospel.  The  teachers  and  preachers  were  called 
Culdees.  It  was  not  a  monastery,  but  a  seminary. 
It  survived  amid  monastic  tyranny  and  licentious- 
ness for  centuries.  It  was  the  morning  star  of  the 
day  of  Knox,  which  came  on  eight  hundred  years 
later.  That  stone  was  used  as  the  coronation  seat 
until,  about  1296,  Edward  I,  after  a  battle,  carried 
it  to  London.  It  now  rests  beneath  the  coronation 
chair  in  Westminster  Abbey.  It  remained  a  captive 
.of  war  for  over  four  centuries. 

Now  it  symbolizes  the  mighty  support  of  the 
British  throne  furnished  by  the  rugged  Scottish  na- 
tion. Were  it  a  diamond,  brilliant  as  the  Koh-i- 
noor,  it  could  not  vie  in  worth  with  that  character 
which  it  symbolizes.  That  character  had  nut  been 
but  for  Knox.    The  stone  is  therefore  his  memorial. 

"Hold  Fast  Our  Confession." 

One  of  the  tallest,  most  comprehensive  monu- 
ments is  the  Confession  of  Faith,  which  he.  more 
than  any  other  man,  provided  for  the  Convention 


Monuments.  95 

of  1560,  and  out  of  which  afterwards  sprang  a  suc- 
cession of  confessions  and  covenants  down  to  one 
hundred  years  later,  the  Westminster  Confession 
and  Catechism,  around  which  Presbyterianism 
throughout  the  world  still  gathers,  and,  though  it  is 
slowly  hewn  away  in  some  of  its  sharper  angles, 
promises  to  abide  as  a  magnificent  expression  of 
catholic  Christianity  for  ages  yet  to  come. 

This  is  one  of  the  monuments  of  John  Knox, 
looming  far  above  all  symbols  of  marble  or  bronze. 

This  may  be  as  favorable  a  time  as  any  to  call 
attention  to  some  of  the  essentials  of  catholic  unity 
between  other  great  religious  denominations  and 
Presbyterians.  Why  should  Baptist,  Congrega- 
tional, Lutheran,  or  Methodist  antagonize  the  Pres- 
byterian as  though  he  were  a  heretic?  That  folly 
was  rebuked  long  ago  by  Paul  when  the  Corinthians 
were  saying,  "I  am  of  Paul,  I  am  of  Apollos,  I  of 
Cephas,  and  I  of  Christ." 

Knox  made  Brown  and  Congregationalism  pos- 
sible ;  he  set  the  pace  for  John  Bunyan  with  his 
"Pilgrim"  written  in  jail,  and  Roger  Williams,  a 
Pilgrim  to  Rhode  Island  under  compulsion,  and 
hence  the  Baptist  Church  in  the  United  States.  But 
(for  Knox,  the  dissenting  iconoclast,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  John  Wesley  would  have  found  his  way 


96  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

so  readily,  one  hundred  and  seventy-nine  years 
later,  into  the  greatest  revival  up  to  that  time. 

Distinctness  of  view  is  helped  by  comparing',  es- 
pecially when  we  can  so  strike  the  merits  as  to  see 
with  more  clearness  and  charity  the  differences  and 
mutual  defects.  Thus  we  learn  from  others  how  to 
improve  ourselves  and  how  to  avoid  conformity  in 
outward  modes  that  degenerate,  and  seize  upon  mat- 
ters that  are  vital  in  other  than  our  own  denomina- 
tion. 

With  this  purpose  let  us  compare  two  of  the 
mightiest  Christian  Protestant  religions  on  earth, 
the  followers  of  Knox  and  of  Wesley.  One  launched 
in  Edinburgh  in  1560,  the  other  in  London  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-nine  years  after;  the  one  pur- 
posely opposed  to  prelacy,  the  other  so  in  spite  of 
itself.  Both  are  Presbyterial,  believing  that  Epis- 
copos  and  Presbutcros  are  identical  so  far  as  they 
signify  ecclesiastical  rank.  Both  are  opposed  to  the 
union  of  Church  and  State.  The  Scotch  Presby- 
terians were  slow  in  attaining  this  liberty,  while 
Methodism  was  never  recognized  by  the  State  in 
England.  In  this  country  both  were  born  free.  As 
to  doctrine,  the  Presbyterians  are  Calvinists,  but 
in  practice  deny  the  fatalism  of  that  system.  The 
Methodists  arc  Arminians,  but  iii  a  greatly  modified 


Monuments.  97 

form,  so  as  to  avoid  its  Antinomian  features  and 
acknowledge  the  Divine  sovereignty.  Presbyterians 
believe  in  the  "assurance  of  faith."  Methodists  em- 
phasize the  "witness  of  the  Spirit."  Both  believe 
in  total  depravity  and  the  sinner's  inability  to  con- 
vert himself.  Both  are  advancing  in  their  earnest 
appeals  to  men  on  the  basis  of  free  will,  power  to 
repent,  believe,  and  be  saved.  Both  are  growing 
powers  in  the  world.  Their  appeal  to  Scripture  is 
striking,  as  seen  in  the  language  of  both  Johns, 
Presbyterian  and  Methodist.  "If  any  man  shall 
note,  in  this  our  Confession,  any  article  or  sentence 
repugnant  to  God's  Holy  Word,  may  it  please  him 
of  his  gentleness  and  for  charity's  sake  to  admonish 
us,  and  we  do  promise  satisfaction  from  the  mouth 
of  God,  or  reformation  of  that  which  he  shall  prove 
to  be  amiss."     (Knox  in  the  Confession.) 

"The  Holy  Scripture  contains  all  things  neces- 
sary to  salvation ;  so  that  whatsoever  is  not  read 
therein,  nor  may  be  proved  thereby,  is  not  to  be  re- 
quired of  any  man  that  it  should  be  required  as  an 
article  of  faith."  (Article  of  Faith  incorporated 
from  the  Church  of  England  by  John  Wesley  into 
the  Methodist  Discipline.) 

The  Presbyterians  have  always  insisted  on  a 
highly  educated  ministry,  and  have  even  crippled 
7 


98  John  Knox:  Tiir,  Ri; former. 

their  power  by  the  exclusive  application  of  school 
requirements  at  the  door  of  entry  into  the  ministry. 
Methodism,  born  in  Oxford  University,  has  never 
as  a  denomination  favored  illiteracy,  but  has  seized 
upon  available  material  for  immediate  necessities, 
and  so  outrun  Presbyterianism  in  both  city  and 
country. 

In  pushing  forward  the  founding  of  institutions 
of  learning  the  "Log  College,"  now  Princeton  Uni- 
versity, is  followed  in  America  with  fifty-five  others, 
while  in  Scotland  all  the  world  may  bow  to  Glas- 
gow, Aberdeen,  and  Edinburgh.  The  wish  of  Knox 
that  the  Kirk  might  "be  preserved  from  the  bondage 
of  the  universities"  has  been  fulfilled. 

Methodism,  with  lavish  hand,  scattered  the  seeds 
of  university  life  across  America  from  ocean  to 
ocean,  until  there  are  225  of  all  grades  in 
spite  of  multitudes  of  abortive  plants  which  should 
have  died.  These  have  been  wisely  co-ordinated  in 
a  high  standard  of  admission  and  graduation,  until 
the  founding  of  the  American  university  at  the  Cap- 
ital of  the  country  promises  to  stimulate  the  whole 
system.  Nor  has  the  Wesleyan  Methodism  of  Eng- 
land neglected  to  establish  institutions  of  learning 
of  very  high  grade. 


Monuments.  99 

In  form  of  government  these  two  great  Churches 
are  nearly  identical.  The  Presbyterian  has  in  local 
Churches  the  session;  the  Methodist  has  the 
Official  Board.  The  Presbytery  in  the  one  is 
answered  by  the  Quarterly  Conference  in  Meth- 
odism. The  Presbyterian  Synod,  a  combination  of 
equal  lay  and  clerical  members,  is  answered  in 
]\Iethodism  by  the  Annual  Conference,  exclusively 
clerical,  except  as  influenced  by  a  powerful  non- 
membership  laity. 

The  highest  governing  body  of  Presbyterianism 
is  the  General  Assembly,  equally  lay  and  clerical. 
The  Methodists  are  governed  by  the  General  Con- 
ference, also  equally  divided  between  laymen  and 
clergymen. 

The  presiding  officer  of  the  highest  Presbyterlal 
body  is  elective  from  time  to  time,  and  called  "mod- 
erator." The  Methodist  bishops  are  no  more  than 
moderators,  presiding  in  turn  without  power  of 
speech  or  vote,  and  amenable  to  the  General  Con- 
ference for  fidelity  in  the  administration  of  office. 

A  striking  difference  between  the  two  is  in  the 
mode  of  supervising  the  pastoral  relation.  Theoret- 
ically, and  in  large  measure  practically,  Methodist 
pastors  are  appointed  to  their  work  by  a  bishop,  as- 


loo  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

sisted  by  a  council  of  presiding  elders.  These  pre- 
siding elders,  appointed  by  the  bishop,  each  has 
supervision  of  the  pastors  within  his  district,  during 
the  Conference  year.  He  may  not  be  presiding 
elder  longer  than  six  years  at  a  time,  while  at  pres- 
ent there  is  no  time  limit  to  the  pastorate.  This  pre- 
siding eldership  provides  as  far  as  practicable  that 
there  shall  be  no  congregation  left  without  minis- 
terial supply.  The  District  Conference  of  Meth- 
odism, composed  of  laymen  and  clergymen,  has  no 
parallel  in  the  sister  Church. 

The  founder  of  Methodism  said,  "I  seek  an  al- 
liance, offensive  and  defensive,  with  all  who  love 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  Tardily  at  first,  but  now 
with  increasing  warmth,  the  Presbyterian  Church 
is  accepting  the  alliance. 

On  the  question  of  episcopacy  there  has  been 
much  ado  about  nothing.  A  Methodist  Presiding 
Elder  is  a  Bishop;  a  Methodist  General  Superin- 
tendent is  also  a  Bishop ;  a  Presbyter  is  a  Bishop ; 
none  of  them  belong  to  a  separate  order.  Prelacy 
is  a  fiction  and  injurious  only  when  lording  it  over 
God's  heritage.  John  Knox  prepared  a  book  of 
Discipline.  In  it  were  these  provisions:  The  diffi- 
culties created  by  the  greatness  of  the  field  and  the 


Monuments.  ioi 

paucity  of  the  laborers  required  two  extra  offices, 
neither  of  which  has  maintained  its  place  in  the 
Presbyterian  system. 

The  first  was  that  of  readers,  who  are  to  read 
prayers  and  the  Scriptures  but  were  unable  to  ex- 
hort.  They  were  encouraged  to  attempt  a  few 
words  of  exhortation  and  instruction  and  if  these 
efforts  succeeded,  they  might  look  forward  to  pro- 
motion to  the  superior  office.  The  other  was  that 
of  superintendents.  Areas  were  allotted  to  them 
severally.  Not  unlike  to  the  sees  of  bishops  within 
which  they  were  to  erect  the  fabric  of  the  Reformed 
Church.  They  were  not  only  to  plant  new  charges 
but  to  examine  the  life,  diligence,  and  behavior  of 
ministers,  and  also  the  order  of  their  Churches  and 
the  manners  of  the  people.  "Provision  must  be  made 
not  only  for  the  sustentation  of  the  ministers  them- 
selves during  their  lives,  but  also  for  their  wives  and 
children  after  them,  for  we  consider  it  a  thing  most 
contrarious  to  reason,  godliness,  and  equity  that 
the  widow  and  children  of  him  who  in  his  life  did 
faithfully  serve  the  kirk  of  God  and  for  that  cause 
did  not  carefully  make  provision  for  his  family, 
should,  after  his  death,  be  left  comfortless  of  all 
provision."    An  ideal  to  be  better  followed  in  our 


I02  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

day.  The  Church  may  be  shamed  by  the  railways 
and  the  State  in  providing  for  retired  employees. 
In  this,  at  least,  Carnegie  is  a  follower  of  Knox. 

We  have  not  lost  sight  of  the  monuments  of 
Knox  in  this  comparison. 

Coming  back  to  covenants  three  years  before 
that  of  1560,  when  Scotland  was  really  born  as  a 
nation,  there  had  been  a  partial  movement  toward 
the  same  end,  and  this  habit  of  entering  into  cove- 
nants and  confessions  of  faith  swept  on  down 
through  three  hundred  years. 

Charles  I  undertook  to  foist  prelacy  on  Scotland 
sixty-five  years  after  the  death  of  Knox.  As  an  out- 
come of  this,  Charles  lost  his  head  twelve  years 
afterwards.  A  better  head  than  Puritans  are  apt  to 
concede.  It  may  be  as  well  to  give  here  some  ac- 
count of  how  it  happened.  At  the  time  (1637)  Laud 
was  the  archbishop.  Inspired  by  Charles  in  his 
movements,  he  appeared  in  St.  Giles  Cathedral 
Church  in  Edinburgh  with  pompous  regalia.  Jen- 
nie Geddes,  whose  identity  has  been  challenged  by 
some  trivial  criticisms,  was  seated  on  a  stool  in  the 
audience.  As  the  archbishop  proceeded  with  the 
collects,  she  mistook  the  word  for  "colic"  and 
shouted,  "Villain,  dost  thou  say  mass  at  my  lug?" 
and  seizing  her  stool,  hurled  it  at  Laud.    The  people 


Monuments.  103 

took  up  the  cry  against  popery,  and  the  riot  ex- 
tended through  the  country  into  a  revolution,  de- 
feating Charles's  purpose.  He  had  intended  to  im- 
pose prelacy  first  on  Scotland,  and  afterward  on  the 
American  Colonies,  so  that  the  club  which  was 
broken  by  the  stool  of  Jennie  Geddes  never  fell 
upon  the  head  of  young  America. 

What  great  things  from  small  beginnings !  A 
boy  threw  a  stone  at  a  priest  in  Perth,  and  the  cathe- 
drals and  monasteries  were  stripped  of  their  works 
of  art.  Peter  the  Great  spoke  a  word,  and  millions 
of  serfs  were  emancipated.  The  bell  rang  out  of 
the  tower  of  Old  South  Church  in  Boston,  and  Paul 
Revere  mounted  and  rode.  His  successors  still  ride 
on.  At  Lexington  they  "fired  the  shot  heard  round 
the  world."  April  12,  1861,  a  man  touched  the  fuse 
.to  fire  on  Fort  Sumter.  That  knocked  the  shackles 
from  three  million  slaves,  as  well  as  the  coming 
millions  of  whites.  A  rioter  flung  an  epithet  at  a 
Russian  officer  in  the  palace  yard  at  St.  Petersburg, 
Sunday,  January  22,  1905,  and  a  collision  followed, 
shaking  the  empire.  So  the  stool  of  Jennie  Geddes, 
keeper  of  a  vegetable  store,  knocked  the  club  from 
the  hand  of  tyranny,  aimed  at  posterity.  For  all 
these  great  results  from  apparently  small  causes,  the 


I04  Joiix  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

conditions  were  ripe.  It  needed  but  the  match  to  set 
the  world  on  fire. 

The  Scotch  were  a  covenanting  people.  Let  the 
world  look  out  for  such. 

The  year  following  the  Revolution  started  by 
that  stool,  the  National  Covenant  was  renewed  at 
Gray  Friars,  Edinburgh.  Sixty  thousand  people 
came  from  all  parts  of  Scotland,  filling  the  Church 
and  even  the  graveyard.  They  listened  solemnly 
to  the  reading  of  the  Covenant.  Then,  with  trem- 
bling hand,  the  Earl  of  Sutherland  first  signed  the 
parchment  roll ;  then  a  stream  of  people  came  sign- 
ing amid  weeping  and  shouting,  "some  adding  to 
their  names,  "Till  death;"  others  drew  blood  from 
their  own  veins  with  which  to  write  their  names, 
till  at  last  there  was  but  room  for  initials,  and  the 
parchment  was  entirely  covered.  This  was  sixty- 
six  years  after  the  death  of  Knox.  Covenanting  is 
well  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  all  human  history  shows 
that  it  is  easy  to  forget.  Tn  five  years  after  the  Na- 
tional Covenant  came  another,  called  "The  Solemn 
T^eague  and  Covenant."  This  was  to  cover  the 
three  kingdoms,  England,  Ireland,  and  Scotland; 
but  it  was  vitiated  by  the  mixture  of  civil  and  relig- 
ious elements.  It  was,  however,  entered  upon  with 
intense  enthusiasm  bv  all  three  of  the  kingdoms.    It 


Monume;nts.  105 

was  destined  to  short  life,  and  was  finally  burned 
eighteen  years  afterwards  by  the  hangman  in  West- 
minster Abbey. 

The;  We;stminste;r  Con^ejssign. 

This  came  also  in  the  time  of  Charles  I.  The 
Assembly  w^as  called  against  the  wishes  of  the  king 
by  the  Long  Parliament.  It  was  composed  of  Eng- 
lish and  Scotch.  Three  Americans — John  Cotton, 
Thomas  Hooker,  and  John  Davenport — were  invited, 
but  could  not  attend.  The  Churches  were  repre- 
sented by  Episcopalians,  twelve  Independents,  some 
Erastians,  and  some  Presbyterians — in  all  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty-one  men.  Unitedly  the  Assembly 
was  composed  of  men  of  talent  and  learning  unsur- 
passed in  their  time.  The  Independents  and  the 
scholarly  Erastians  withdrew  before  the  end  of  the 
Assembly,  while  the  Presbyterians  continually  in- 
creased, and  became  the  controlling  power.  Their 
work  was  deliberately  done,  requiring  five  and  a 
half  years  and  1,163  sessions  before  it  went  forth 
from  that  Jerusalem  chamber.  There  was  much 
fasting  and  prayer;  some  of  the  prayers  were  even 
two  hours  long.  No  wonder  the  Confession  en- 
dures. The  Assembly  came  under  the  Long  Parlia- 
ment.   Both  passed  away  together,  but  left  the  great 


io6  John  Knox:  The;  Reformer. 

Confession  an  abiding  shaft  to  the  memory  of  Knox. 
He  wrote  that  of  1560,  its  forerunner,  in  four  days. 

The  Kirk  a  Monument. 

In  pointing  out  the  creeds  and  covenants,  have 
we  gotten  away  from  Knox?  That  were  impossi- 
ble, just  as  it  would  be  to  get  away  from  Ben  Nevis 
until  we  could  escape  the  waters  flowing  from  his 
sides  into  the  Sound  of  Mull  or  i\Ioray  Forth,  or 
just  as  Mount  Shasta  follows  one  all  the  way  of  the 
Sacramento  through  the  Golden  Gate. 

In  addition  to  the  covenants  was  the  Scottish 
Kirk. 

Emerson  visited  Carlyle  in  Scotland.  Standing 
on  a  hill,  Carlyle  pointed  to  a  church-spire  in  the 
valley,  and  said :  "Eighteen  hundred  years  ago 
Christ  died  on  the  cross  in  Palestine.  That  built  the 
church  in  the  valley  yonder.  That  brought  you 
and  me  together  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  See 
how  all  things  work  together." 

Coming  down  only  fifteen  centuries  from  the 
crucifixion,  we  may  add.  had  not  Knox  protested 
and  stood  through  stress  and  storm,  neither  church- 
spire,  nor  Carlyle  and  Emerson,  nor  reader  or 
writer,  would  have  enjoyed  our  religious  liberty. 


monumijnts.  ^  107 

Ths  Schoolhouse;. 

John  Knox  outlined  a  system  of  general  educa- 
tion open  for  all  children,  coupled  with  university 
privileges.  This  was  in  1560.  There  was  a  special 
act  passed  promoting  the  same  great  enterprise  in 
1695.  That  movement  toward  popular  education 
was  not  received  with  favor  in  England.  It  has 
taken  all  the  time  till  now  for  the  mother  country 
to  become  thoroughly  aroused  to  the  necessity  of  an 
educated  peasantry. 

Governor  Berkeley,  of  the  Virginia  Colony,  about 
1650,  reported  that  there  was  no  common  school  in 
existence  in  Virginia,  and  he  hoped  there  would  not 
be  for  the  next  hundred  years.  His  lordship  be- 
longed to  the  Cavaliers,  and  reflected  their  distrust 
of  education  for  the  common  people.  They  believed 

"A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing, — 
Drink  deep,  or  taste  not  the  Pierian  spring." 

Knox's  ideal  reached  America  during  her  Colo- 
nial period.  It  found  prolific  soil  until  to-day  there 
is  "a  church  in  every  valley  and  a  schoolhouse  on 
every  hillside."  Thirty  millions  of  worshipers,  the 
very  salt  of  the  earth,  pass  in  and  out  of  these  church 


io8        ,  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

doors,  while  about  eighteen  milUons  of  school 
pupils  pass  in  and  out  of  the  "little  red 
school"  under  the  American  flag.  The  entire 
population  of  Spain  is  but  ten  millions,  a  little  over 
half  the  number  of  our  school-children,  while  that  of 
Scotland  is  about  five  millions,  or  not  one-third  of 
these  intellectual  heirs  of  John  Knox.  Face  the 
church  or  the  schoolhouse  in  either  case,  take  off 
your  hat  and  bow  reverently  to  the  memory  of 
Knox. 


CHAPTER  II. 
BONNIE  SCOTLAND. 

This  is  one  of  the  monuments  of  Knox,  with  a 
dark  seam  or  two  in  its  pure  marble.  It  is  with  no 
pleasure  we  point  them  out,  nor  with  invidious  com- 
parison, forgetful  of  similar  as  well  as  other 
shadowy  lines  attaching  to  all  English-speaking  na- 
tions. There  was  looseness  in  the  marital  relations 
of  the  ancient  Scottish  clansmen ;  this  did  not  pass 
away  in  the  later  times  of  priest,  abbot,  and 
noble.  It  was  shockingly  prominent  in  court  life 
during  our  Reformer's  era;  even  to  this  day  the 
ratio  of  illegitimates  is  so  almost  unbelievable  that 
we  abstain  from  statistics.  May  the  pure  spirit  of 
Knox  soon  prevail  so  as  no  longer  to  entail  such  sor- 
row upon  innocent  children,  not  to  speak  of  the 
horrors  in  the  life  of  those  sinning !  The  Reformer 
deemed  adultery  worthy  of  death. 

There  is  also  what  is  known  as  Scotch  whisky. 
Would  that  the  name  might  be  cut  in  twain,  robbing 
109 


no  John  Knox:  The  Ruformer. 

it  of  the  honored  name  of  "Scotch !"  There  are  in 
our  country  flamingo  placards  advertising  cigars  and 
drinks  that  are  insulting  to  the  memory  of  such 
men  as  Henry  George  and  President  Garfield.  One 
would  imagine  their  bones  to  stir  in  their  graves 
could  they  read  the  advertisements  beneath  their 
pictures  on  the  face  of  our  city  walls.  Why  must 
death-bed  scenes  of  illustrious  statesmen,  Presidents, 
and  governors  be  made  offensive  with  descriptions 
of  the  death-dealing  cigar?  Scotch  whisky  st'll 
poisons  the  noble  blood  of  Scotland.  Lately  a  fire 
destroyed  a  storage  of  seven  hundred  thousand  gal- 
lons in  Aberdeen,  which  released,  broke  away  down 
the  streets  of  the  city  into  the  river  Dee,  and  on  like 
a  river  of  fire  to  the  German  Ocean.  Let  Carlyle 
boast  of  Knox  as  a  "cheery,  social  man,  having  his 
pipe  of  Bordeaux  in  that  old  Edinburgh  house  of 
his."  Had  Knox  been  alive  to  look  on  that  fire 
rolling  down  the  streets  of  Aberdeen,  doubtless  his 
serious  face  would  have  lighted  up  with  gladness. 
Our  grandsires  called  "old  rye"  God's  good  creature, 
and  served  it  to  their  ministers ;  nor  has  the  habit 
f^ed  entirely  from  among  English  preachers,  who 
lone  up  for  the  pulpit  with  this  devil's  stimulus 
called  by  John  Wesley  "liquid  fire  and  distilled 
damnation."    With  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 


Monuments.  hi 

of  Knox's  fiber  the  liquor  curse  will  pass  out  of  our 
nation,  soon  to  be  followed,  let  us  hope,  by  its  twin 
curse,  nicotine  poison. 

Over  against  these  reluctant  impeachments,  I 
quote  Dr.  Philip  Schaff:  "Scotland  is  an  uncon- 
querable fort  of  orthodox  Protestantism.  In  no 
other  country  and  Church  do  we  find  such  fidelity 
and  tenacity;  such  unswerving  devotion  to  the 
genius  of  the  Reformation ;  such  union  of  metaphys- 
ical subtlety  with  religious  fervor  and  impetuosity; 
such  general  interest  in  ecclesiastical  councils  and 
enterprises;  such  jealousy  for  the  rights  and  the 
self-government  of  the  Church ;  such  loyalty  to  a 
particular  denomination,  combined  with  a  generous 
interest  in  Christ's  kingdom  at  large;  such  rever- 
ence for  God's  Holy  Word  and  holy  day  that,  after 
the  hard  and  honest  toil  of  the  week,  lights  up  the 
poorest  man's  cottage  on  Saturday  night." 

Lofty  tribute  from  a  native  Switzer  to  sons  of 
Scotia ;  but  both  are  mountain  lands,  famous  for 
Protestant  heroes. 

Other  Monuments. 

Scotland  has  a  large  number  of  fine  cities.  We 
mention  a  few  with  over  a  hundred  thousand  popu- 
lation.    Edinburgh,  the  capital,  overhung  with  a 


112  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

cloud  of  historic  interest  and  decorated  with  very 
fine  modern  architecture,  wears  as  her  brightest 
jewel  the  famous  university.  It  occupies  the  ground 
of  the  "Kirk  o'  Field"  and  the  murder  of  Darnley ; 
a  nobler  substitute  than  the  obelisk  of  Luxor  on  the 
blood  spot  of  the  guillotine  in  Paris. 

Another  great  monument  is  Dundee,  astride  the 
Tay,  eight  miles  from  the  German  Ocean,  wonder- 
ful for  its  docks,  its  jute,  its  Baltic  commerce,  and 
its  trade  with  Canada  and  India.  It  has  a  cathedral 
about  old  St.  Mary's  Tower  and  a  university  of 
renown. 

Further  north  is  Aberdeen,  by  the  Dee,  and  fac- 
ing the  German  Ocean  with  its  mighty  pier,  its 
granite  bridge,  its  woollens  and  Marischal  College. 

There  is,  on  both  banks  of  the  Clyde,  Glasgow, 
next  London  in  population,  greatest  in  Scotland  in 
variety  of  marnifactures  and  shipments.  It  has  a 
Gothic  cathedral  of  great  beauty,  but  its  university 
rises  greater  than  all.  the  Alma  Mater  of  Knox. 

The  Scotch  Sabbath  as  a  Monument. 

Scotchmen  excel  us.  Knox  set  tlu'  pace.  The 
Pharisees  overdid  the  benign  law  of  the  Sabbath, 
so  did  they  the  law  of  the  tithe,  fasting,  and  prayer. 
It  is  easy  to  make  a  yoke.    There  is  much  foolish 


Monuments.  113 

sneering  at  the  Puritan  Sunday  among  us,  promoted 
mostly  by  men  who  despise  all  law,  excepting  greed 
and  appetite.  When  Carl  Schurz,  as  a  fugitive, 
landed  in  Edinburgh,  he  sought  an  interview  with 
a  man  of  large  business  interests  and  was  aston- 
ished to  find  that  no  business  houses  were  open  on 
the  Lord's  Day.  His  description  of  his  experiences 
that  day  are  comically  eloquent,  when  one  remem- 
bers the  beer-garden  habit  of  his  native  Germany. 
In  our  capital  at  Washington  all  government  build- 
ings are  closed  on  the  Sabbath-day,  except  the  Li- 
brary, and  it  were  better  for  that  to  be  closed.  Go 
to  Edinburgh  and  you  will  find  that  the  divine  law, 
"Remember  the  Sabbath-day  to  keep  it  holy,"  was 
no  mistake  on  the  part  of  the  Almighty. 

RoIvIv-Call. 

Omitting  for  the  present  any  analysis  of  callings, 
let  us  run  the  eye  down  the  alphabet  and  find  the 
descendants  of  John  Knox,  who  but  for  his  work 
could  not  have  been. 

A.  There  were  the  Abercrombies,  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  eighteenth  century,  very  eminent  in  mili- 
tary service,  literature,  and  science,  both  medical 
and  moral. 

B.  Far  back  in  the  centuries,  amid  the  shadows, 
8 


114  John  Knox:  The:  Reformer. 

were  the  Bruces,  mighty  chieftains,  celebrated  in 
song  and  fiction.  Of  them  came,  after  the  Reformer, 
singers  and  explorers,  also  Barbour,  poet,  contem- 
porary of  Chaucer.  There  was  Bell,  who  though 
born  in  Edinburgh,  rang  out  the  telephone  from 
Boston ;  and  Black,  writer  of  romance ;  and  Blackie, 
masterful  molder  of  mind ;  and  Blair,  founder  of 
William  and  Mary  College,  Virginia ;  and  Browns  to 
furnish  martyr,  physician,  metaphysician,  and  to 
leave  us  "Rab  and  Plis  Friends."  And  there  were 
the  Balfours,  and  Lord  Brougham,  a  marvel  of  ora- 
tory and  statecraft, down  to  his  ninetieth  year;  and 
George  Buchanan  of  classic  learning,  writing  poems 
in  Latin ;  and  one  of  the  few  hymn-writers  of  high 
order  in  our  day,  the  late  lioratius  Bonar.  The 
blood  of  Browning  was  tinged  on  the  maternal  side 
with  Scotch.  Sir  Campbell-Bannerman,  English 
premier,  comes  of  the  stock. 

C.  The  Campbells  were  a  gifted  race,  furnish- 
ing such  a  poet  as  could  give  the  world  "Lord  L'l- 
lin's  Daughter"  and  "llohcnlindon."  How  can  we 
praise  Chalmers,  Carlyle,  Caldcrwood.  Carnegie, 
divines,  orators,  metaphysicians,  and  benefactors? 

D.  Come  we  to  Douglas,  family  that  furnished 
eight  leaders  slain  in  battle  by  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  before  Knox's  time.    "They 


Monuments.  115 

that  take  the  sword  shall  perish  by  the  sword."  But 
the  name  Douglas  lives  honored  by  lovers  of  peace. 
William  Drummond  was  a  rival  of  Ben  Jonson. 
Dunbar  was  a  courtly  singer.  Dalrymples,  four  of 
them,  are  noted  for  statecraft,  law,  war,  and  history. 

E.  The  name  of  Erskine  suggests  a  constellation 
in  law,  jurisprudence,  and  religion,  who  made  the 
latter  part  of  Scotland's  eighteenth  century  bril- 
liant. 

F.  Name  Forbes,  and  you  suggest  high  literary 
talent. 

G.  Grant  means  arts  and  sciences  as  well  as 
military  ability ;  one  strand  of  which  ended  at  Mount 
McGregor  when  our  Ulysses  died.  Gladstone,  peer- 
less in  his  day,  was  of  Scotch  ancestry. 

H.  The  Hamiltons  were  borderers,  swinging  to 
either  side  as  best  suited  them  through  the  long 
years  of  strife,  but  furnishing  further  down,  the 
great,  if  not  the  greatest,  metaphysician  of  his  race, 
Sir  William  Hamilton.  And  there  is  Hog^g,  whose 
poetry  deserves  a  better  name.  Hood  breaks  the 
heart  with  his  "Song  of  the  Shirt." 

I.  Irving  was  a  brilliant,  troublesome,  fanatical, 
religious  leader. 

J.  James,  for  the  most  part,  but  a  titular  name. 
There  were  six  of  them  in  a  line ;  five  of  whom  lost 


ii6  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

life  in  battle  or  by  assassination.  The  fifth  died  of 
a  broken  heart  on  account  of  failure  in  battle ;  this 
was  the  father  of  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 

K.  We  come  to  the  Keiths,  gifted,  martial, 
scholarly ;  one  of  them  was  the  confidant  of  Fred- 
erick the  Great,  and  died  on  the  field  of  Hohenkirch. 
Another  gave  Marischal  College  and  University  to 
Scotland. 

L.  Sir  David  Lindsay,  first  of  Scotch  laureates ; 
and  Leyden,  cosmopolitan,  scholar,  and  traveler. 
The  Leightons  were  an  able  and  genial  family. 
There  were  four  Leslies,  two  great  generals,  one 
a  diplomatist,  one  a  physicist.  Lockhart  gave  the 
Edinburgh  Quarterly  Rcviczv  to  the  world  as  well 
as  the  "Life  of  Sir  Walter  Scott."  When  we  say 
Livingstone,  there  emerges  Africa  and  the  sources 
of  the  Nile. 

M.  Many  are  the  Macs.  Macgregor,  the  "Rob 
Roy"  of  Sir  Walter;  George  Macdonald,  who  threw 
floods  of  sunshine  over  Scottish  hills  and  life;  and 
Hector  Archibald  Macdonald,  of  Egypt,  India,  then 
South  Africa,  Major-General  of  Highlanders.  The 
Montgomeries,  three  of  them  poets.  The  Moorcs, 
one  physician  and  writer ;  and  Sir  John,  whom  we 
remember  "with  his  martial  cloak  around  him,  left 
alone  in  his  glory;"  and  the  Morays,  too  distin- 


Monuments.  117 

guished  to  describe;  the  Muirs,  one  a  Sanscrit 
scholar  and  one  Arabic.  John  Muir,  fosterer  of  our 
national  parks,  and  whose  monument  is  the  Muir 
Glacier. 

M.  Murchison  was  the  dominant  geologist  in  his 
time.  And  there  was  Murdock  who  improved  the 
steam-engine  of  Watt,  and  in  1792  produced  illumi- 
nating gas  and  coal.  And  there  is  McAuley  and 
McCosh  lent  to  us  for  Princeton,  and  the  Macken- 
zies  and  the  McPhersons.  The  name  of  Hugh  Mil- 
ler suggests  "Old  Red  Sandstone."  To  name  Mc- 
Crie  is  to  mention  the  most  thorough  biographer,  as 
well  as  the  fairest,  of  Knox  and  Melville,  and 
Matheson,  whose  physical  blindness  enhanced  his 
spiritual  vision,  and  McLaren,  for  fifty  years 
preacher  and  expositor,  growing  richer  each  year. 

N.  Napier  was  the  inventor  of  logarithms.  The 
Nasmyths,  father  and  son,  were  painters;  while 
Patrick  Nasmyth  gave  the  steam-hammer  to  the 
world.  Nichols,  father  and  son,  are  noted  in  as- 
tronomy and  literature.  Nicol  was  the  painter  of 
"Irish  Life ;"  Lady  Nairne,  "Imitator  of  Burns." 

O.  Mrs.  Oliphant  was  a  prolific  novelist,  at  first 
a  bit  lonesome  in  Scotch  leadership,  being  a  woman. 
But  her  kind  has  come  to  the  front.  Drop  the 
alphabet  and  group  the  women.     Fanny  Wright 


ii8  John  Knox:  The  Rei^ormer. 

became  our  first  woman  lecturer.  Three  great  lady 
travelers,  Miss  North,  Darwinized,  melancholy, 
widely  traveled,  a  gifted  artist;  Mrs.  Ella  Bird 
Bishop,  the  conquerless  cripple,  wit,  and  orator, 
traveling  amid  the  Asiatic  nations,  opening  the  way 
for  the  support  of  mission  work  an  honor  to  Bonnie 
Scotland;  Miss  Constance  E.  Gordon  Gumming,  a 
descendant  of  Red  Gomyn,  the  touch  of  her  wealth 
and  genius  diffusing  itself  over  Christian  Europe 
and  unchristian  China,  where  by  her  support  Hill 
Murray  teaches  the  blind  to  read  and  open  their  eyes 
on  two  worlds. 

P.  Playfair  was  philosopher  and  mathematician  : 
Pinkerton,  antiquarian  and  litterateur.  Paterson 
rose  from  the  rank  of  peddler  to  become  the  founder 
of  the  London  Bank ;  he  was  so  far-sighted  as  to  be 
promoter  of  the  first  Panama  or  Darien  enterprise 
in  the  seventeenth  century ;  the  colony  thus  founded 
was  called  New  Caledonia ;  it  was  wrecked,  as  was 
that  of  the  French  near  two  centuries  later.  This 
Paterson  also  was  a  leader  in  the  Union  of  Scotland 
and  England,  which  succeeded  better  than  the 
Darien  enterprise.  PoUok  is  immortal  as  the  au- 
thor of  "The  Course  of  Time." 

R.  Alexander  Ross  is  famed  as  the  author  of 
"The  Fortunate  vShophcrdcss."  There  were  four 
Ramsays,  each  brilliant;  one  started  a  circulating 


MONUMEJNTS.  119 

library,  one  was  a  geologist,  one  a  chevalier,  an- 
other a  clergyman  and  writer.  Reid,  a  great  philos- 
opher, who  by  his  philosophy  o£  common  sense,  off- 
set the  folly  of  Hume  and  Berkeley.  He  was  fol- 
lowed by  Stewart,  Sir  William  Hamilton,  and  in  our 
day  by  Calderwood.  The  Rennies,  three  of  them, 
left  their  monuments,  one  at  Sebastopol,  one  in  Lon- 
don Bridge,  and  one  at  London  Docks.  To  men- 
tion Roberts  and  Robertson  is  to  suggest  painting, 
military   craft,   antiquarian   research,   and  history. 

S.  John  Skinner,  of  "Tullochgorum."  To  name 
Scott  is  to  speak  of  the  painter,  the  philosopher,  and 
Sir  Walter.  There  were  Shairp  and  Sharp,  like  their 
own  names.  Out  of  the  great  throngs  of  Smiths  we 
need  mention  but  two,  Adam  the  political  economist, 
and  Robertson  Smith,  the  Biblical  scholar,  Ste- 
phenson calls  to  mind  a  great  engineer  and  the  pa- 
thetic Robert  Louis,  with  his  "Jekyll  and  Hyde.'* 
To  name  the  Stewarts  suggests  Sir  Donald,  military 
hero,  and  Dugald,  the  philosopher.  Sterling  stands 
for  medicine  and  literature ;  Syme,  the  great  sur- 
geon ;  and  Alexander  Selkirk,  who  set  the  boy  world 
in  pursuit  of  Robinson  Crusoe. 

T.  There  were  the  Taits,  one  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury,  the  other  physicist  and  mathematician. 
Tannahill  and  Tennant.  Thomas  Telford  was  a 
great  civil  engineer.    There  were  seven  Thomsons, 


t2o  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

a  naturalist,  two  poets,  one  painter,  an  explorer,  a 
chemist,  and  an  antiquary.  Tyler  left  the  bar  for 
literature. 

W.  Sir  William  Wallace  is  traced  so  far  back 
in  the  shadows  of  history  as  to  appear  somewhat 
dim,  though  there  is  a  monumental  tower  more  than 
two  hundred  feet  high  at  Abbey  Craig,  establishing 
him  firmly  in  Scottish  history,  for  it  is  a  sort  of  Val- 
halla for  Scotland.  Sir  David  \Mlkie,  a  great 
painter  with  a  poetic  soul ;  it  was  he  who  gave  the 
world  the  painting  of  "John  Knox  Preaching  Be- 
fore His  Congregation  in  Edinburgh,"  now  in  the 
British  Museum.  To  say  Wilson  is  to  name  the  dis- 
tinguished archaeologist,  and  "Sir  Christopher 
North,"  and  another  great  linguist  missionary ;  and 
Wilson,  who  fell  heir  to  the  sword  of  Cameron  when 
his  hands  were  cut  off.  George  Wishart,  who  led 
Knox  into  the  light,  was  burned  at  St.  Andrews. 

Y.  James  Young,  chemist,  early  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  whose  experiments  led  to  the  petro- 
leum industry.  Colonel  Sir  Henry  Yule,  a  distin- 
guished soldier  in  India,  and  an  author  of  literary 
skill  equal  to  his  military  talent.  Possibly  the  letter 
Z  is  too  angular  to  be  at  home  in  Scotland,  unless 
softened  to  S,  where  it  sits  on  the  Shetland  Isles 
and  their  hardy  ponies. 


MoNUME'NTS.  121 

To  read  the  above  list  bestirs  one's  blood  some- 
thing after  the  sound  of  the  pibroch. 

A  more  rapid  summary  may  show  the  marvelous 
intellectual  and  moral  force  of  the  men  made  pos- 
sible by  the  life  of  our  Reformer. 

Poets. — Drummond,  Ramsay,  Burns,  Thomson, 
Beattie,  Scott,  Campbell,  Pollok,  Lockhart,  Mont- 
gomery, Wilson,  Aytoun. 

Historians. — Buchanan,  Burnet,  Hume,  Rob- 
ertson, Russell,  Watson,  Alison,  Carlyle. 

Philosophers. — Adam  Smith,  Reid,  Karnes, 
Stewart,  Brown,  Sir  William  Hamilton. 

Science. — Napier,  Ferguson,  Watt,  Playfair, 
Maclaurin,  Leslie,  David  Brewster,  Hugh  Miller, 
Sir  Charles  Lyell,  Sir  Roderick  Murchison. 

Take  the  Scotch  out  of  the  British  Scientific  As- 
sociation to-day,  and  but  a  small  fragment  is  left. 

Writers. — Boswell,  Smollett,  Mackenzie,  Blair, 
McCrie,  Chalmers,  Jeffrey,  Brougham. 

Travelers. — Bruce,  Park,  Ross,  Livingstone. 

Biblical  Scholars. — Too  many  to  mention, 
while  to-day  the  bodyguard  and  advanced  column 
toward  the  very  core  of  the  Christian  faith  is 
Scotch. 

Has  there  broken  forth  such  a  stream  of  mission- 
ary enthusiasm  from  any  other  part  of  the  world? 


122  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

Only  to  mention  Alexander  Duff,  whose  little  school 
in  Calcutta  grew  in  thirty-six  years  to  three  thou- 
sand. And  Robert  Morrison  who  captured  the  lan- 
guage of  the  Chinaman  and  taught  it  to  speak  the 
language  of  the  Bible.  John  Kenneth  McKenzie, 
the  Scotch  Canadian,  and  James  Gilmore,  the  apostle 
to  Mongolia;  George  Leslie  Mackay  of  Highland 
ancestry,  the  conqueror  of  Formosa.  To  mention 
Livingstone  is  to  see  Africa  emerge  on  the  eyes  of 
the  world.  Melville  B.  Cox,  the  first  missionary  of 
the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  to  Africa,  with  a 
name  of  Scotch  fiber,  said,  "Though  a  thousand  fall 
let  Africa  be  redeemed."  Bishop  William  Taylor 
was  thoroughly  of  the  same  mold,  one  of  the  most 
picturesque  and  successful  missionaries  in  history. 
We  all  can  join  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  his  patriotic 
lines : 

"  O  Caledonia,  stern  and  wild, 
Meet  nurse  for  a  gifted  child; 
Land  of  brown  heath  and  shaggy'  wood. 
Land  of  the  mountain  and  the  flood; 
Land  of  my  sires !   what  mortal  hand 
Can  e'er  untie  the  filial  band 
That  knits  me  to  thy  rugged  strand?" 

Where  are  the  monuments  of  Knox?     Where 
are  they  not? 


PART  IV. 

SHAMROCK  AND  THISTLE. 


CHAPTER  I. 
SHAMROCK  AND  THISTLE. 

Thk  Scotch-Irish,  whence  are  they?  In  the 
north  of  Ireland  is  the  province  of  Ulster,  equal  to 
about  one-fifth  of  the  State  of  Ohio.  A  thousand 
years  before  Knox's  time  the  Irish  went  over  to 
Caledonia,  and  so  far  subdued  its  people  as  to  leave 
their  own  name,  Scotch,  upon  the  land.  About 
thirty  years  after  Knox  died,  the  Scotch,  in  return, 
went  to  Ireland,  and  planted  in  Ulster  an  irrepressi- 
ble Presbyterian  Protestantism,  sons  of  Knox. 

Thence  came  to  the  American  colonies,  a  hun- 
dred years  after  the  settlement  of  the  Puritans  in 
New  England  and  the  Cavaliers  in  Virginia,  a  flood 
of  immigration,  which,  entering  New  England, 
Pennsylvania,  and  the  Carolinas,  broke  through  the 
Alleghanies  into  all  the  West.  Following  the  "An- 
trim evacuations"  in  1704,  thirty  thousand  emi- 
grated to  America  in  two  years. 
125 


126  John  Knox:  The;  Reformer. 

For  a  long  time  they  were  busy  in  the  work  of 
settlement  and  subjugation  of  the  soil.  They  helped 
in  the  Revolutionary  War  and  the  founding  of  the 
American  Government,  silent  as  to  their  nationality ; 
but  in  later  years,  largely  through  the  organization 
of  the  Scotch-Irish  Congress  in  1889,  they  have 
spoken  out,  made  themselves  known,  and  asserted 
their  claims.  In  this  they  have  resembled  very  much 
the  floods  that  break  from  the  mountains  of  Scot- 
land beneath  their  snow  and  ice.  It  takes  time  to 
thaw,  but  when  they  break  forth,  they  sweep  all  be- 
fore them. 

Puritanism  is  very  loosely  defined.  It  was  per- 
vasive, and  included  Protestantism  in  England, 
Scotland,  Ireland,  Holland,  and  their  successors  in 
America.  "In  England  it  produced  statesmen  like 
Hampden,  soldiers  like  Cromwell,  poets  like  Milton, 
preachers  like  Howe,  theologians  like  Owen,  dream- 
ers like  Bunyan,  hymnists  like  Watts,  and  saints 
like  Baxter;"  in  America,  Bradford,  Cotton,  Endi- 
cott,  Winthrop,  Williams. 

There  is  some  risk  of  these  Scotch-Irish  dis- 
counting Yankee  Puritanism  in  their  sweeping 
claims  for  having  accomplished  almost  all  in  bring- 
ing the  country  to  its  present  achievements.  How- 
ever, Puritans,  having  first  had  their  say,  can  well 


Shamrock  and  Thisti^e.  127 

afford  to  listen  to  this  broad-shouldered,  big- 
brained,  hardy  race  of  Scotch-Irish.  In  their  re- 
volt they  dropped  the  English  Rose  from  the  triple 
emblem,  leaving  only  the  Thistle  and  the  Shamrock. 

The  Declaration  oe  American   Independence 
IS  a  Memorial. 

In  Wooster  County,  Massachusetts,  as  early  as 
1773,  there  were  fifty  families  from  Scotland  who 
declared  against  the  domination  of  the  mother  coun- 
try, while  the  Mechlenburg  Declaration  in  North 
Carolina  came  in  1775.  When  in  Independence 
Hall,  July  4,  1776,  there  was  hesitancy  about  sign- 
ing the  Declaration,  Dr.  Witherspoon,  a  lineal  de- 
scendant of  John  Knox,  said,  "To  hesitate  at  this 
moment  is  to  consent  to  our  slavery.  That  noble 
instrument  on  your  table  should  be  subscribed  this 
very  moment  by  every  pen  in  this  house.  He  that 
will  not  respond  to  its  accents  and  strain  every 
nerve  to  carry  into  effect  its  provisions,  is  unworthy 
the  name  of  free  man,  and  although  these  gray  hairs 
must  soon  descend  into  the  sepulcher,  I  would  in- 
finitely rather  that  they  should  descend  thither  by 
the  hand  of  the  executioner  than  desert  at  this  crisis 
the  sacred  cause  of  my  country."  When  in  a  day 
or  two  the  signing  took  place,  down  went  the  sig- 


128  John  Knox:  Tiie  Reformer. 

natures  of  fourteen  Scotchmen.  Like  the  stone 
of  Scone  beneath  the  coronation  chair  in  Westmin- 
ster Abbey,  the  hardy  Scot  was  never  removed  from 
his  loyalty  to  the  British  throne.  Gladstone,  with 
Scotch  blood  in  his  veins,  practically  effected  the 
disestablishment  in  Ireland,  and  unhappy  Erin  has 
come  to  her  emancipation  from  a  long,  intolerable 
landlordism. 

When,  under  the  new  Constitution,  also  signed 
by  twelve  Scots,  Washington  formed  his  first  Cab- 
inet, he  called  Alexander  Hamilton  to  the  Treasury ; 
Thomas  Jefferson,  Secretary  of  State;  General 
Knox,  Secretary  of  War ;  Randolph,  Attorney-Gen- 
eral ;  Rutledge,  Wilson,  Blair,  and  Iredell,  Asso- 
ciate Justices, — Scotch  blood  in  every  one  of  them. 
Half  of  his  generals  in  the  Revolutionary  War  were 
Scotch. 

In  the  conquest  of  the  West,  David  Crockett, 
Scotch-Irish,  pushed  out  of  Tennessee  into  Texas, 
and  perished  at  Fort  Alamo.  Daniel  Boone,  of  the 
same  race,  was  the  forerunner  of  civilization  in 
Kentucky,  passing  thence  into  Missouri,  where  he 
died. 

Simon  Kenton  forced  his  way  savagely  into  Ohio, 
and  afterward  joined  George  Rogers  Clark.    These 


Shamrock  and  Thistle.  129 

were  the  breakers  on  the  wave  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion. Then  followed  the  ruling  type  of  the  same 
Scotch-Irish.  Into  Texas  went  General  Sam  Hous- 
ton ;  into  Kentucky  and  northward  into  Ohio  and  the 
Northwest,  pre-empting  it  for  the  American,  George 
Rogers  Clark  was  sent  by  Patrick  Henry.  Still 
other  grades  of  the  same  people  followed:  in  Ten- 
nessee, Andrew  Jackson;  in  the  central  parts  came 
Breckenridge,  and  later  Benton;  and  north  of  the 
Ohio,  Arthur  St.  Clair,  Anthony  Wayne,  and  Mc- 
Arthur;  followed  later  by  the  McDonalds  and  the 
McCooks.  Francis  McCormick,  lay  preacher, 
planted  Methodism  on  the  Miami  over  a  hundred 
years  ago.  Still  later  to  this  heart  of  the  Republic 
came  James  K.  Polk. 

Again  we  must  enter  the  Scotch  verdict.  Some 
of  their  orators  claim  James  Madison,  others  have 
claimed  Abraham  Lincoln.  We  do  not  wonder  at 
this,  he  was  so  marked  by  the  traits  of  their  nation- 
ality. But  Nicolay  traces  him  through  seven  gen- 
erations of  English.  Another  of  their  orators  even 
claims  Governor  Corwin — "Tom  Corwin,  the  Wag- 
oner Boy;"  he  was  unsurpassed  in  the  witchery  of 
his  oratory;  but  was  likely  English  or  Hungarian, 
or  both.  Should  they  claim  the  merry- faced 
9 


I30  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

man  of  the  moon,  we  could  only  reply  "Not  proven." 
That  stately  great  man  who  financiered  the  Re- 
public through  our  Civil  War,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  and 
Mark  Hanna,  who  could  carry  a  Presidential  cam- 
paign without  campaign  speeches,  were  both 
Scotch-Irish.  There  is  on  the  maternal  side  a  strain 
of  this  blood  in  Theodore  Roosevelt.  Never  was 
there  a  manlier  Presidential  campaign  than  when 
two  gifted  Scotch-Irish,  Christian  men  headed  the 
Republican  and  the  Democratic  tickets  in  the  per- 
sons of  William  IMcKinley  and  William  J.  Bryan. 
Forty  colonial  governors  sent  to  this  country  before 
1776,  and  twelve  Presidents  of  the  United  States  up 
to  date,  have  been  of  this  blood.  This  book  is  writ- 
ten in  sight  of  the  cemetery  where  lies  the  dust  of 
two  Scotch-Irish  Ohio  governors,  Duncan  Mc- 
Arthur  and  William  Allen. 

They  II.we  Been  Illustrious  in  Law  and 
Jurisprudence. 

To  name  John  Marshall  is  but  to  suggest  a  line 
of  such;  as,  Thomas  Ewing,  "Salt-boiler"  and 
"Nestor;"  John  ^Nlclycan.  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  David 
Davis,  Allen  G.  Thurman ;  Benjamin  Harrison,  dis- 
tinguished as  President,  more  eminent  as  lawyer ; 
William  C.  Preston,  of  South  Carolina,  orator  and 


Shamrock  and  Thistle.  131 

senator ;  Attorney-General  Crittenden,  John  G.  Car- 
lisle, and  Proctor  Knott — all  great  lawyers ;  Thomas 
Scott,  secretary  of  the  first  Constitutional  Conven- 
tion of  Ohio,  and  Supreme  Judge ;  and  William  T. 
McCIintick,  a  cultured,  gifted  lawyer,  jurist,  and 
Christian,  an  honor  to  his  State  and  to  Chillicothe, 
Ohio,  where  his  life  was  spent. 

Orators. 

The  list  were  too  long  to  call.  Patrick  Henry, 
by  his  eloquence,  decided  and  precipitated  the  Revo- 
lutionary war,  Samuel  Galloway,  of  Columbus, 
Ohio,  was  by  name,  temperament,  and  electrical 
eloquence,  joined  with  piety  and  love  of  the 
Scriptures,  thoroughly  Scotch-Irish.  When  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  introduced  him  to  General  Mc- 
Clellan,  he  remarked,  "I  want  to  present  my 
friend,  Sam  Galloway ;  there  is  but  one  of 
his  kind."  In  the  face  of  the  coming  Civil  War, 
at  a  great  anti-Nebraska  Convention  held  in  Colum- 
bus, Galloway  was  making  an  address,  during  which 
he  shouted  "Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin!"  It 
seemed  to  us  as  though  Daniel  had  come  again  to 
judgment.  More  than  any  other  man  he  brought 
the  school  system  of  Ohio  to  order. 


132  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

Pulpit. 

To  eliminate  this  race  from  the  ranks  of  Amer- 
ican preachers  were  to  rob  it  of  much  of  its  glory 
in  Canada  and  the  United  States.  To  specify  were 
a  long,  invidious  task.  Part  of  its  emphasis  may 
be  seen  in  its  contribution  to  Methodism  as  well  as 
to  Presbyterianism  and  the  other  Churches.  It  gave 
such  as  Mackenzie,  McTyeire,  Maffitt,  Axley,  Mc- 
Gee,  Cartwright,  and  Lakin.  It  has  furnished  the 
episcopacy  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  with 
a  Simpson  and  a  Thoburn.  Were  the  Fitzes  and 
Macs,  with  all  that  strain  of  blood,  to  be  superan- 
nuated an  immediate  election  would  become  neces- 
sary to  repair  the  wreck  of  the  episcopal  wheel. 

This  race  is  capable  of  great  religious  enthu- 
siasm, even  to  wildfire.  A  pair  of  Scotch-Irish 
brothers,  Presbyterian  and  Methodist,  John  and 
William  McGee,  were  humanly  responsible  for  the 
great  revival  which  occurred  in  1800,  known  as  the 
Canebrake  Camp-meeting  in  Kentucky.  It  was  at- 
tended with  convulsions,  jerks,  contortions,  and 
other  unexplained  and  inexplicable  phenomena, 
while  out  of  it  originated  that  noble,  evangelical 
Cumberland  Presbyterian  Church  as  well  as  the 
modern  camp-meeting,  an  institution  now  largely 


Shamrock  and  Thistle.  133 

void  of  its  original  power.  Ethics  and  entertainment 
have  taken  the  place  of  conversion.  Alexander 
Campbell  displayed  his  Scottish  talent  and  tempera- 
ment in  his  protest  against  all  creeds,  specially  in 
his  own  Presbyterian  Church.  He  carried  on  his 
battle  with  an  aggressiveness  worthy  of  Knox,  un- 
til to-day  his  followers  amount  to  a  million  and  a 
quarter.  This  Church  dislikes  to  be  called  by  the 
name  of  its  founder,  preferring  that  of  Disciples  of 
Christ.  In  truth  it  has  become  more  softened  into 
a  Christian  denomination  with  a  fraternal  spirit. 

Educators. 

In  this  the  Scotch-Irish  have  greatly  distin- 
guished themselves.  Blair  founded  William  and 
Mary  for  "the  glory  of  Almighty  God."  It  received 
a  land  grant  before  Harvard.  There  were  the 
Tennents  and  Witherspoons,  McCosh  of  Princeton, 
and  the  late  William  R.  Harper,  of  Chicago  Uni- 
versity. The  Ohio  University,  though  started  by 
New  England  Puritans,  has  had  in  the  line  of  her 
presidents  several  descendants  from  Ulster.  The 
portraits  of  Wilson  and  Howard  are  Scotchy.  Mc- 
Guffey,  who  did  so  much  for  the  literary  taste  of 
young  America  by  his  school-readers,  must  have 
been  Scotch-Irish.    It  is  certain  that  President  Wil- 


134  John  Knox:  Thk  Reformer. 

liam  H.  Scott  inherited  his  stalwart  manhood,  high 
moral  tone,  religious  conscientiousness,  and  philo- 
sophical acumen  from  the  North  of  Ireland  on  both 
the  paternal  and  maternal  side.  Dr.  George  R. 
Crooks,  of  Drew  Seminary,  scholar  and  biographer, 
was  of  this  stock.  Some  of  the  chief  places  in  Johns 
Hopkins  and  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  arc 
filled  with  Scotch-Irish.  Asa  Gray,  whom  I  saw  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains  vie  with  Sir  Joseph  Hooker 
in  original  botany,  was  of  this  blood. 

Journalism. 

In  journalism  the  race  has  excelled.  As  editors 
of  newspapers,  John  Campbell  started  the  Boston 
Nezi's  Letter  in  1704;  the  first  north  of  the  Ohio 
River,  in  Cincinnati,  1792,  was  published  by  Wil- 
liam Maxwell ;  The  Western  Herald,  by  James  Wil- 
son, was  begun  at  Steubcnville,  Ohio,  in  1806. 
Horace  Greeley  and  his  successor,  Whitelaw  Reid,  in 
the  Tribune,  furnished  fine  specimens  of  talent ;  and 
we  may  add  Grady,  of  the  Atlanta  Constitution; 
Watterson,  of  the  Louisville  Courier  Journal;  James 
Gordon  Bennett,  Simon  Cameron,  with  Charles 
Hammond,  of  Ohio,  in  1812.  After  him  follow  the 
McLeans,  Richard  Smith.  Murat  Halstead,  Joseph 
Medill,  Samuel  Medary ;  James  Scott  m  Chicago, 


Shamrock  and  Thistle.  135 

editor  of  the  Western  Star  at  Lebanon,  Ohio,  and 
author  of  Scott's  Law  taxing  the  hquor-traffic  in 
his  State. 

McClure  in  Philadelphia,  and  Cockerill;  J.  B. 
McCuUagh,  of  the  St.  Louis  Glohe-Demorcat;  John 
PVew,  Wheeling  Intelligencer ;  John  Russell  Young, 
General  Stedman;  Bonner,  of  the  New  York 
Ledger,  are  noted;  the  writer's  home,  Chillicothe, 
has  one  daily,  that  was  edited  by  a  red-hot  Scotch- 
Irishman,  William  H.  Hunter,  who  has  recently 
died,  and  to  whose  courtesy  the  author  is  much  in- 
debted ;  and  another,  G.  W.  C.  Perry,  of  the  stock 
of  Oliver  Hazard  Perry,  whose  great  "Lake  Erie 
Victory"  hangs  in  the  rotunda  of  the  Buckeye  Cap- 
itol as  a  fine  painting. 

When  we  advance  to  the  realm  of  magazine  lit- 
erature, we  should  find  that  greatly  depleted  if  we 
take  away  the  Macs  from  the  list  of  publishers'  and 
editors'  names.  Daniel  Curry  was  a  giant  of  this 
race. 

We  should  prejudice  our  case  by  ignoring  the 
constellation  of  brilliant  historians,  novelists,  poets, 
theological  writers,  metaphysicians,  and  scientists, 
which  broke  forth  from  New  England  Puritanism. 
In  this  they  led  off;    but  we  can  not    ignore  the 


136  John  Knox:  Thk  Reformer, 

stream  of  Scotch-Irish  talent.  In  divinity,  Alexan- 
der and  Hodge  are  claimed  by  this  race ;  so  is  Mc- 
Cosh.  Dr.  McClintock,  of  the  great  Cyclopedia,  a 
man  of  all-round  talent,  was  Scotch-Irish. 

In  history,  Washington  Irving  is  a  name  to  con- 
jure with,  and  Douglas  Campbell,  of  multitudinous 
name,  has  changed  the  angle  of  vision  in  his  "Puri- 
tanism in  Holland,  England,  and  America." 

Inventors. 

As  one  hearkens  to  the  puff  of  the  engine,  it 
seems  to  be  shouting  the  name  of  "Watt,"  "Watt," 
"Watt!"  If  we  listen  to  the  muffled  sound  of  the 
steamboat,  it  will  speak  the  name  of  another  Scotch- 
Irishman,  "Robert  Fulton,"  "Robert  Fulton,"  "Rob- 
ert Fulton !" 

Do  you  hear  the  singing  of  the  wires  overhead? 
Their  melodious  note  hums  the  name  of  another  of 
this  race,  "Samuel  Morse,"  "Samuel  Morse,"  "Sam- 
uel Morse!" 

When  the  trolley-line  carries  one  swinging  up 
and  down  our  valleys,  he  may  hear  the  name  of  a 
man  with  a  Dutch  father  and  a  Scotch  mother,  as  it 
sings  "Edison,"  "Edison,"  "Edison !" 

Should  there  come  ringing  on  your  ear  the  tele- 
phone, hearken  well  and  you  will  hear  the  name  of 


Shamrock  and  Thistle.  137 

a  man  born  in  Edinburgh,  born  again  in  Boston, 
saying  "Bell,"  "Bell,"  "Bell!" 

Look  at  the  harvester  rolling  across  the  fields, 
and  you  will  hear  it  singing  its  inventor's  praise, 
"McCormick,"  "McCormick,"  "McCormick !" 

When  you  roll  along  a  prepared  highway  in  car- 
riage or  automobile,  you  can  not  forget  that  the 
Macadamized  way  is  whispering  a  Scotchman's 
name,  "Macadam,"  "Macadam,"  "Macadam!" 

Old  Scotia,  too,  has  furnished  naval  heroes. 
Jean  Paul  Jones,  with  his  Bon  Homme  Richard, 
^as  Scotch.  His  bones  were  lately  brought  from 
France  to  rest  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  Oliver 
Hazard  Perry,  in  his  conquering  fleet  on  Lake  Erie, 
had  a  vessel  named  Caledonia.  His  Scotch-Irish 
blood  was  from  his  mother,  whose  grandfather  was 
a  Wallace. 

The  wonder  is  that  these  Protestants  and  lovers 
of  liberty  could  have  adopted  slavery.  The  signers 
of  the  Mecklenburg  Declaration  sowed  the  Caro- 
linas  with  slaves.  They  produced  a  Calhoun;  then 
pushed  their  armies  against  the  Republic  under 
the  Lees,  Morgans,  and  Kilpatricks.  A  President  of 
the  United  States  named  Buchanan  had  opened  the 
way,  and  he  was  a  Scotch-Irishman.  One  of  their 
orators  said,  "They  kept  the  commandments  and  all 


138  John  Knox:  Thk  Reformer. 

they  could  lay  their  hands  on  besides."  They  first 
acquired  their  own  liberty  and  then  that  of  their 
neighbors. 

If  in  this  list  omissions  occur,  it  is  because  of 
the  great  multitude  of  illustrious  people  of  Scotch 
descent  and  the  impossibility  of  exhausting  the  roll. 
What  more  flat  than  the  oft-used  phrase  "and 
others?"  It  generally  falk  from  the  flatterer's  pen 
or  that  of  the  impolite.  In  the  present  case  both 
motives  are  denied,  and  yet  I  hardly  hope  to  be  for- 
given. I  have  not  said  everything  about  everybod) . 
But  no  writer  ever  did,  or  ever  will. 


CHAPTER  II. 
OUR    HERO. 

"  Having  done  all  to  stand." 
"  Athanasius  contra  mundum." 

With  many  men  this  may  be  conviction  diluted 
with  stubbornness,  or  it  may  be  stubbornness  forti- 
fied by  conviction.  It  may  be  the  heroism  of  bhnd- 
ness  or  enlightenment  accepting  all  the  risks. 

Wellington  had  given  an  order  to  a  subordinate. 
With  pale  countenance  the  officer  rode  away  to 
execute  the  order.  "There,"  said  the  great  com- 
mander, "is  a  brave  man;  he  sees  the  danger  and 
faces  it."    Such  was  the  heroism  of  our  Reformer. 

Impetuosity  is  on  the  border  of  sin.  So  is 
lethargy. 

Mankind  admire  a  moral  hero ;  few  seem  ready 
to  imitate  him.  Most  of  us  approve  of  advance- 
ment until  it  disturbs  us.  Old  usage,  however,  is 
139 


14©  John  Knox:  Thk  Reformer. 

not  immortal.  Even  dynamite  is  better  than  eternal 
slumber.  Degeneration  is  easier  than  regeneration  ; 
it  is  better  that  great  moral  forces  be  giiided  than 
resisted.  There  are  times  when  evil  is  so  en- 
trenched that  the  only  thing  left  is  to  bombard  the 
fortress. 

We  must  not  discount  modern  heroism.  There 
is  often  harmful  delusion  in  asserting  that  "the 
former  days  were  better  than  these."  This  may  be 
quoted  with  a  whine  followed  by  a  yawn. 

When  the  American  Civil  War  came  on,  there 
was  a  wail  through  the  land  declaring  that  there 
were  no  George  Washingtons  or  Thomas  Jeffer- 
sons,  no  Daniel  Websters  or  General  Scotts,  but  the 
occasion  found  the  men  needed. 

Our  heroic  forefathers  did  not  so  miserably  fail 
as  to  leave  no  heroic  posterity. 

Nor  may  we  ignore  the  superiority  of  manhood 
over  material  conditions  whether  four  hundred 
years  ago  or  four  hundred  years  hence,  whether  in 
John  Knox  or  the  man  who  shall  celebrate  the  com- 
munion in  Lhassa. 

The  smartness  which  considers  itself  "up  to 
date"  discounting  the  fathers,  had  as  well  be  mod- 
est.   Knox  never  rode  an  automobile.    Lutiier  never 


Shamrock  and  Thistle.  141 

called  up  the  Pope  by  telephone.  JEHjah  did  not 
travel  to  Mount  Horeb  on  the  through  limited. 
Moses  never  rode  in  an  airship.  Millions  of  moderns 
are  doing  these  things  and  yet  remain  Lilliputians. 

By  Patient  Continuance. 

The  life  of  Knox  might  have  seemed  wrecked 
by  delays  unavoidable. 

He  was  forty-two,  nine  years  beyond  the  age 
at  which  Alexander  the  Great  had  conquered  the 
world,  before  he  entered  on  his  life  work.  Bacon 
had  written  his  celebrated  essays  at  thirty-six.  Sa- 
vonarola had  sent  his  congregations  home,  bewail- 
ing their  sins  as  they  went  through  the  streets,  when 
but  thirty-eight.  George  Whitefield  was  stirring  the 
hearts  of  men  on  both  continents  at  an  age  when 
Knox  was  yet  in  obscurity.  Coming  out  of  his 
silence  at  the  age  of  forty-two,  could  he  have  seen  it, 
there  were  but  twenty-five  years  left  for  his  life 
work.  Two  of  those  years  were  wrested  from  him 
by  the  French  galleys.  Edward  the  Sixth  called 
him  to  England  where  five  years  due  to  Scotland 
were  subtracted.  Banished  to  the  continent,  over  a 
year  was  apparently  wasted  amid  the  quibbles  of  a 
temporary  pastorate  in  Frankfort.     Then  Geneva 


142  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

took  out  about  four  years  more,  leaving  but  thirteen 
for  the  direct  work  of  the  Reformation  of  Scotland, 
the  completest  of  all  the  reforms  of  that  centurv. 

A  re-survey  of  this  loss  of  time  may  be  encour- 
aging. His  seventeen  years  at  school  in  Hadding- 
ton, his  college  days  at  Glasgow,  his  study  of  logic 
and  Plato  under  John  Major  gave  time  for  his  moral 
and  intellectual  nature  to  take  root.  He  learned  the 
power  of  prayer  more  perfectly  while  a  galley-slave. 
After  that,  in  touch  with  court  life  and  the  English 
under  Edward  the  Sixth,  he  was  himself  in  train- 
ing. While  in  Dieppe  ringing  out  his  trumpet  blast 
against  the  iniquities  in  England  and  Scotland, 
through  all  these  he  was  forging  the  sword  that  cut 
vScotland  free. 

Remoter  Heroes. 

View  him  in  the  light  of  some  Reformers  of  an 
earlier  day.  Saint  Cyprian,  of  Carthagena.  in  the 
middle  of  the  third  century,  spent  his  force  mainly 
on  the  non-christian  world  and  lost  his  head,  Knox 
spent  his  strength  on  both  papal  and  secular  sur- 
roundings, but  kept  his  head — the  more  is  the 
wonder. 

Athanasius,  of  Alexandria,  in  the  fourth  cen- 
tury spent  twenty  years  in  exile,  but  did  more  for 


Shamrock  and  Thisti^e.  i43 

the  world  with  his  pen  during  that  banishment  than 
he  Hkely  could  have  done  at  home.  He  left  as  his 
monument  a  great  confession  of  faith.  Knox  left  a 
creed,  a  kirk,  and  a  new  born  nation. 

Both  Cyprian  and  Athanasius  were  Bishops. 
Knox  declined  that  office  and  so  stands  out  among 
the  rarities  of  mankind. 

Augustine,  another  white  African  of  the  fourth 
century,  transferred  his  thought  through  John  Cal- 
vin into  a  milder  fatalism  taught  by  Knox.  But  he 
fell  away  during  his  youthful  days  from  the  faith 
taught  him  by  his  Christian  mother.  For  John 
Knox,  one  conversion  was  enough. 

Chrysostom  of  the  fourth  century,  a  Greek,  was 
golden  mouthed.  Knox  sounded  a  trumpet,  else  he 
might  have  failed  in  his  work  of  reform.  The  Greek 
was  sentenced  to  banishment  for  too  much  plain- 
ness of  speech,  even  in  his  mellifluous  periods.  A 
revolt  among  his  Antioch  followers  and  a  timely 
earthquake  kept  him  at  home  for  a  time.  Queen 
Eudoxia,  however,  was  like  Mary  Queen  of  Scots, 
and  must  be  rid  of  the  preacher  or  else  reform.  In 
that  case  Chrysostom  had  to  go.  Knox  did  not  go 
for  he  would  not. 

Hildebrand  began  as  a  reformer  within  the 
Church,  but  turned  out  to  be  Pope  Gregory  the 


144  John  Knox:  Tiie  Reformer. 

Seventh,  reputed  the  most  talented  of  the  papal 
Hne.  Like  all  reforms  within  the  papal  Church,  his 
failed.  He  did  succeed  in  excluding  the  nobles  and 
the  German  Emperor  from  any  part  in  choosing  or 
investing  the  Pope.  He  thus  compacted  and  cen- 
tralized the  power  within  the  papacy,  which  over- 
shadowed and  controlled  Scotland  in  the  time  of 
Knox.  Knox  broke  that  power  and  brought  Scot- 
land to  its  feet. 

Peter  the  Hermit,  of  the  latter  part  of  the 
eleventh  century,  was  a  monk  and  therefore  lacked 
the  advice  of  a  wife  and  the  influence  of  a  home  to 
restrain  him.  He  fired  the  peasant  heart  and  the 
adventurer's  greed  so  as  to  lead  as  many  as  thirty 
thousand  people  through  a  fatal  march  of  starvation 
and  slaughter  for  the  capture  of  the  Holy  Land 
from  the  grasp  of  the  Turk. 

Knox  inspired  a  crusale  against  vice  within  the 
papal  Church  and  among  the  Scotch  people  and 
won  his  campaign  with  the  sword  of  the  Spirit. 


CHAPTER  III. 
ELEMENTS  OF  CHARACTER. 

He:  Was  Born  Again. 

It  is  well  for  us  that  the  Christian  world  is 
never  tired  of  turning  back  to  the  great  event  in  a 
Christian  leader's  life  when  he  passed  from  death 
unto  life  consciously.  Though  not  always  revealed 
clearly  to  the  subject  himself  as  a  sudden  event,  yet 
it  is  of  tremendous  importance  to  all  men. 

Saul  of  Tarsus  in  Damascus  breaking  into  light, 
the  conscious  "warming  of  heart"  of  Wesley,  and 
the  "sweet  burning  of  heart"  of  Jonathan  Edwards, 
seem  more  directly  matters  of  consciousness. 

Martin  Luther  emphasizes  less  the  inner  change, 
but  hears  the  voice  as  if  from  heaven,  "The  just 
shall  live  by  faith." 

While  the  experience  of  John  Knox  is  largely 

unrecorded  as  to  how  he  passed  the  boundary  line 

from  the  righteousness  of  the  confessional  to  that 

of  him  whose  sole  confessor  is  Christ,  we  know  he 

lo  145 


146  John  Kxox:  The  Reformer. 

had  that  witness,  "\\*e  have  passed  from  death  unto 
life  because  we  love  the  brethren."  His  heart  went 
out  to  George  W'ishart  and  all  like  him.  Little  mat- 
ter to  us  now  how  and  when  it  occurred,  but  he 
"first  cast  anchor"  within  the  ocean  of  Di\-ine  love. 

Surely  he  had  been  bom  again.  November  9, 
1572,  he  was  stricken  with  his  last  illness.  He  lin- 
gered for  fifteen  days.  Except  one  or  two  conflicts 
with  Satan,  he  was  cheerful  and  happy.  He  greatly 
rehshed  the  sixteenth  chapter  of  i  Corinthians,  on 
the  Resurrection  of  the  Dead,  remarking,  "Is  not 
that  a  comfortable  chapter?" 

Once  he  said,  "Xow  for  the  last  I  commend  my 
soul,  spirit,  and  body  into  Thy  hands,  O  Lord." 
After  repeating  the  Lord's  Prayer  he  said,  "\\T:o 
can  pronounce  so  holy  words  ?"  Later  he  asked  his 
wife  to  read  John  xvii,  "\Miere  I  cast  my  first 
anchor."  His  watchers  had  been  praying,  and  in- 
quired of  him,  "Heard  you  the  prayers.^"  He 
answered,  "Would  to  God  that  you  and  all  men 
heard  them  as  I  have ;  I  praise  God  for  that  heav- 
enly soimd ;"  then  he  said,  "Xow  it  is  come." 

Richard  Bannat}-ne,  sitting  by  him,  said,  "That 
we  may  understand  that  you  hear  us,  make  some 
sign."  He  lifted  up  one  hand,  and  so  fell  on  sleep. 
That  hand  was  his  flag  of    triumph,    sa}-ing,    "O 


Shamrock  and  Thistle.  147 

Death,  where  is  thy  sting?  O  Grave,  where  is  thy 
victory?  Thanks  be  to  God  who  giveth  us  our  vic- 
tor}- through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Elijah. 

Like  all  great,  stormy  natures,  he  had  his  juni- 
per-tree when  he  sighed  to  be  released  from  battle. 
He  was  a  stem  self-accuser. 

He  belonged  to  those  men  whose  greatness  is 
characterized  by  self-depreciation.  There  is  danger 
of  this  ruiming  to  excess.  It  is  true  of  a  chain  that 
it  is  only  as  strong  as  its  weakest  link,  but  this  is 
not  so  of  a  man.  With  him  the  stronger  parts 
ought  to  reinforce  the  weaker.  Conscience  may  be 
reinforced  by  knowledge.  Faith  will  reassure  the 
other  so-called  links.  Hope  under  the  command  of 
will,  may  pull  a  man  away  from  under  the  Juniper- 
tree,  or  out  of  a  descending  basket  by  tlie  wall  of 
Damascus  or  away  from  the  depression  of  the 
French  galley  or  from  the  bed  of  a  paralytic  in  Edin- 
burgh. 

Here  are  excerpts  from  his  writings : 

"The  lack  of  fer\-ency  in  rep^o^•ing  sin,  indif- 
ference in  feeding  those  that  were  hungry-,  the  lack 
of  diligence  in  execution  of  mine  office,  deservea 
damnation.     And  besides  these  I  was  assaulted — 


148  John  Knox:  The  Rei^ormer. 

yea,  infected  and  corrupted — with  more  gross  sin; 
that  is,  my  wicked  nature  desired  the  favors,  the 
estimation,  and  praise  of  men;  and  so  privily  and 
crafty  did  they  enter  into  my  breast  that  I  could  not 
perceive  myself  to  be  wounded  till  vainglory  had 
almost  got  the  upper  hand. 

"Pride  and  ambition  assault  me, — on  the  one 
part  covetousness  and  malice  trouble  me;  on  the 
other,  briefly,  O  Lord,  the  afflictions  of  the  flesh  do 
almost  suppress  the  operation  of  the  spirit.  I  take 
Thee,0  Lord,  who  only  knowest  the  secrets  of  hearts 
to  record  in  none  of  the  aforesaid  do  I  delight. 
Thou  hast  sealed  into  my  heart  remission  of  sins 
received  by  the  blood  of  Jesus  Christ  once  shed ;  my 
manifold  rebellions  are  defaced,  my  grievous  sins 
purged,  and  my  soul  made  the  tabernacle  of  Th> 
godly  majesty." 

He  had  a  stroke  of  apoplexy  near  two  years  be- 
fore his  death.  He  overdrew  his  vitality.  Did  he 
not  need  athletics?  He  wrote:  "By  counsel  of  car- 
nal friends  I  spared  the  body,  spent  some  time  in 
taking  recreation,  and  pastime  by  exercise  of  body." 
In  a  letter  he  speaks  of  being  "weary  of  this  old 
carcass."  He  went  so  far  during  his  last  illness  as 
to  order  his  coffin  made.  But  ere  the  end  came  he 
installed  James  Lawson,  vice-principal  of  the  Uni- 


Shamrock  and  Thistle  149 

versity  of  Aberdeen,  as  his  successor  over  the 
Church  of  St.  Giles.  This  gave  him  great  satis- 
faction. 

But  Elijah  was  as  good  a  man  under  the  juniper 
as  on  Camiel  at  the  sacrifice ;  as  sincere  though  mis- 
taken as  when  Horeb  was  wrapped  in  the  triple  gar- 
ment of  storm,  earthquake,  and  fire. 

His  chariot  and  whirlwind  were  ready  when 
needed,  as  well  as  when  he  was  on  his  way  to  Her- 
mon  nine  hundred  years  later,  to  a  conference  with 
]\Ioses  and  Jesus  about  the  crucifixion. 

Others  besides  Knox  himself  have  been  his  de- 
tractors ;  but  they  knew  him  not  personally,  and 
lived  in  a  world  so  remote  from  him  as  to  be  inca- 
pable of  understanding  him.  Richard  Bannatyne 
lived  with  him  and  could  not  be  deceived.  His 
head  was  too  clear  and  his  judgment  too  cool  to  be 
swept  away  by  grief  at  the  death  of  Knox.  Let 
him  speak :  "The  man  of  God ;  the  light  of  Scot- 
land ;  the  comfort  of  the  Kirk  within  the  same ;  the 
mirror  of  godliness,  and  a  pattern  to  all  true  minis- 
ters in  purity  of  life,  soundness  of  doctrine,  and 
boldness  in  reproof  of  wickedness." 

This  becomes  the  honest  opinion  of  careful  stu- 
dents of  histor}'  as  the  years  go  by,  and  such  he 
shows  up  the  four  hundredth  year  after  he  was  born. 


150  John  Knox:  The  Reformer. 

His  Courage. 
This  we  have  seen  in  all  his  career.  One  of  the 
main  incentives  for  writing  this  book  was  to  add,  if 
possible,  a  new  emphasis  to  this  quality.  When 
Knox  had  died,  Earl  Morton,  a  very  talented  man, 
not  religious,  morally  perverse,  but  a  great  leader, 
stood  by  his  grave  and  gave  utterance  to  a  eulog\' 
which  has  rung  on  through  the  centuries,  and  shall 
never  die  out :  "Here  lieth  a  man  who  never  feare  1 
the  face  of  man."  This  is  an  epitaph  worth  while. 
Let  it  be  the  war-cry  of  our  country  till  it  sweep 
through  the  nations.  Knox  had  physical  courage ; 
he  only  fled  to  Germany  from  Bloody  Mar)-  under 
the  pressure  of  his  friends.  When  chained  to  the 
oar  as  a  galley-slave,  he  rebuked  his  keepers  with- 
out fear,  so  that  in  the  time  of  storm  the  captain, 
though  a  papist,  asked  for  Knox's  prayers.  When 
he  came  back  from  his  exile  to  Scotland  and  pro- 
posed to  preach  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Andrews, 
and  the  archbishop  declared  he  would  order  the 
soldiers  to  fire  on  him,  his  friends  advised  him  not 
to  venture ;  but  he  did  preach  there  three  days  in 
succession  so  as  to  rally  the  officers  and  the  people 
to  set  up  the  reform  of  worship  in  that  old  cathedral 
town.    It  took  the  higher  type  of  courage  when  he 


Shamrock  and  Thistlk.  151 

dissented  from  English  ritualism  at  Frankfort; 
when  he  sounded  his  first  blast  of  the  trumpet 
against  Bloody  IMary  and  others ;  when  he  rebuked 
Gardiner,  the  Bishop  of  Winchester ;  when  he  con- 
fronted Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  and  rebuked  her 
from  the  pulpit  with  great  courage,  afterwards  do- 
ing the  same  to  her  face.  At  last  he  sent  a  message 
to  Charles  IX  by  his  own  ambassador,  then  present 
in  the  audience,  warning  him  of  the  judgment  to 
come.  And,  as  he  himself  foretold,  "the  ages  to 
come  will  be  compelled  to  bear  their  witness  to  the 
truth."    "He  never  feared  the  face  of  man." 

His  Power  in  Prayi;r. 

The  attraction  which  started  this  book  we  have 
left  till  the  last, — the  reputed  prayer  of  Knox, 
"Give  me  Scotland  or  I  die."  This  is  quoted  in  the 
pulpit  and  in  books  on  prayer,  and  has  done  great 
service.  Being  of  such  importance,  we  have  sought 
to  verify  it,  but  in  vain.  Search  has  been  made  per- 
sonally through  a  wide  range  of  literature.  Corre- 
spondence has  been  had  with  a  dozen  of  the  most 
expert  in  library  research  in  this  country,  England, 
and  Scotland,  but  the  frank  acknowledgment  has 
come  from  every  one  of  them,  "I  am  unable  to 
verify  the  prayer."       The  names  of    these  corre- 


152  John  Knox:  Tiiiv  Reformer. 

spondents  would  be  astonishing.  Still,  the  author 
believes  that  Knox  gave  expression  to  it.  We  find 
in  his  writing  such  similar  sentiments  as  these : 
"The  long  thirst  of  my  wretched  heart  is  gratified  in 
abundance  above  my  expectation ;"  "J^^^^  Christ 
shall  triumph  here  in  tlic  Xorth  and  the  extreme 
parts  of  the  earth ;"  "Notwithstanding  the  fever  has 
vexed  me,  yet  have  I  traveled  through  most  parts 
of  this  realm,  where  men  of  all  sorts  and  conditions 
embrace  the  truth."  In  his  sixty-seventh  and  last 
year  he  wrote :  "Weary  of  the  world,  and  thirsting 
to  depart ;"  "I  thirst  for  an  end  before  I  be  more 
troublesome  to  the  faithful ;"  "Now,  Lord,  put  an 
end  to  my  miserie ;"  "As  the  world  is  wearie  of  me, 
so  am  I  of  it ;"  "John  Knox,  with  my  dead  hand  but 
glaid  heart,  praising  God." 

I  believe  John  Knox  uttered  the  cry,  for  it  was 
in  harmony  with  his  entire  career  as  a  self- forgetful, 
self-sacrificing  reformer,  to  pray,  "Give  me  Scot- 
land or  I  die."  T.et  it  fly  over  the  world.  It  is  the 
heart  of  the  great  evangel.  It  was  identical  in 
spirit  with  the  feeling  of  a  man  whom  Knox  so 
greatly  resembled,  who  wrote,  "I  could  wish  myself 
anathema  for  my  brethren  according  to  the  flesh." 
It  sprang  from  a  sublimer  source  heard  on  the  cross, 
"Father,  forgive  them,  for  they  knov^r  not  what  they 
do." 


INDEX 


Page 

A  Kempis lo 

Albigenses 50 

Alva 39 

Baptists 95 

Beaton 20,  41 

Ben  Nevis 24 

Beza 17,  73 

Blunderer 68,  72 

Bothwell i5>  16,  47 

Bowes 20,  36 

Brown 29,  34 

Bruce 45,  47 

Burns 32 

Caledonia 23 

Calvin 18,  29,  78,  79 

Cailyle  30,  34,  80,  82,  106 

Catherine  de  Medici 11 

Cathedrals 43 

Cavour 80 

Cecil 56 

Church  and  State 73,  74 

Charles  IX 151 

Covenanting 104 

Cranmer, Ridley  &  Latimer  60 

Cromwell 61,  68 

Congregationalism 95 

Courage 150 

Darnley 16,  47,  112 

Declaration  of  I  n  d  e  p  e  n- 

dence 127 

Dialect 67 

Druids 42 

Educated  Ministry 98 

Edwards 77,  145 

Elizabeth 40,  70,  72,    81 

Elijah 147 

Erasmus 48 


Page 

Fenlon 10 

Froude 80,  81 

Galleys 20,  28 

Gardiner 60 

Geddes,  Jennie 102 

Geneva 68 

Gladstone 69 

Grampians 24 

Guises 40,  48 

Haddington 15,  19 

Hamilton 16,  42 

Hebrew 68 

Henry  VIII 40,  49 

Holland 62 

Humor 26,  37 

Jacobite 62 

James 17,  45,  57 

John  Baptists 50 

John  O'Groates 23,  43 

Knox  Delayed 141 

Leo  X 40 

Loir 20 

Loyola 18,  49 

Luther i9i  20,  50 

Macdonald 16,  34 

McCrea 41 

Major 21,  65 

Martyrdom 42 

Mary,  Bloody..  35,  40,  47,  59 
Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  11, 

28,  35.  36.  47,  143 

Melville 16,  55 

Melancthon 22 

Mother-in-law 35 

Monuments 91-122 


153 


Index 

154 

Page 
Morton 9,  150 


Murray 56 

Netherlands 23 

Newman 10 

Open  Doors 48 

Picts 45 

Prayer 151 

Parallel,  M  et  li  o  d  i  s  t  and 

Presbyterian 96 

Preacher 55,  58 

Philip  II 39,  49 

Reform  and  Revival. . .  61,  85 

Richmond 17 

Riot 28 

Roll-Call  of  the  Scotch...  113 

Savonarola 29,  50 

School-house 107 

Scholarship 64,  65,  67 

Schafif 78,  III 


Pack 

Schurz 113 

Scotcli  Irish 125-138 

Stewart 95 

St.  Andrews...  21,  42,  52,  58 

St.  Bartholomew 49 

Stone  of  Stone 94 

Superstition 85 

Tenderness 32 

Thompson,  Edward 33 

Tolloch 53 

Waldenses 50 

Walter  Scott...  27,  40,  92,  122 

Wesley i-*^,  33,  58,  80 

Westminster 55,  95 

William  of  Orange 62 

Wishart 16,  19,  22,  49 

Witherspoon 127 

Wyclif 50,  54 

Young 17 

Zwingli. 50 


BW2141  .C94 

John  Knox:  the  reformer, 

Princeton  ThroloqiCAl  Seminary   Sperr  Library 


1    1012  00016  6746 


